by Susan McMillan

     This is why I went to law school: every law has a story more interesting and tangled than fiction, involving fortune, fear, friendships and vendettas. I wasn't here in 1999 and 2000 when what David Moats calls "civil wars" over equal marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples were tearing communities and even families apart. But I can get a flavor of the time through his recently released book, Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage (Harcourt).
     Rather than adding to dusty volumes of dense language, David Moats reminds us that making law in a democracy is all about extraordinary effort, frustration, loyalty, and courage. It is not the tedious language of statutes. Studying Vermont's 9,000-word Civil Union law would put the hardiest of us to sleep, but reading about how it came to life will enthrall you, as it did me.
     And Moats has offered his advice to Massachusetts legislators, now facing a similar situation, through commentaries in the Boston Globe. In essence, he says: Take heart, this making of real democracy is difficult, but it can be faced with courage and dignity and mutual respect. The lessons of Vermont apply, including the one that says if the legislature hopes to avoid the vituperation of the homophobic, the bigots, and the religious right, a compromise like civil unions will not provide cover, so you might as well go the whole way.
      If you did not know the outcome, Civil Wars would be a cliff-hanger, a legal thriller down to the final vote. Instead of turning to the last page to see how the story ends, you are drawn in to see how it unfolds. Delve in for a glimpse of some of the personalities and events, locked together in time, place, and by chance, producing this historic step in the lesbian and gay civil rights movement.
     A divorced father of three children, Moats came to this issue naturally, having been influenced by a call to conscience in a campus speech he attended in 1965 at the University of California Santa Barbara. An associate of Martin Luther King'smade an impassioned plea, and Moats found himself wondering why he was sitting in school rather than riding a freedom bus in the South.
      Thirty-five years later, he would witness what he calls "the most extraordinary story" he had ever covered. As the editorial page editor of the Rutland Herald, he "did not come to the issue as a gay man." However, Moats writes, "I was able to see a truth that becomes increasingly plain as the curtains of bias are pulled aside. When love shows up, it does not always obey arbitrary social conventions. It is up to us to follow where it leads."
     Moats won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his series of editorials published during Vermont's hearings on gay marriage. Unfortunately, the award winning editorials are not reprinted in Civil Wars, but as he told me in a brief phone interview, the focus of this project was never on him. Although his place was out of the eye of the storm, his astute observation of the process results in a subtle first-person narrative. This is not historical fiction with fabricated conversations reflecting what could have been said at a meeting that might have happened.
     Civil Wars links the lives of the plaintiffs, attorneys, justices, legislators, and everyday Vermonters in a documentary-style approach. Although it opens on December 20, 1999 when the state Supreme Court released its decision in Baker v. Vermont, Moats free-dives back into the cases, events, and tragedies that led to that day. This outcome came about from the lives of activists and martyrs as various as Martin Luther King, Harvey Milk, and Matthew Shepard, and relied on occurrences dating to well before the Stonewall riots. He traces the origins of the struggle to Vermont's status as an independent republic and as the first state to abolish slavery.
      In a style reminiscent of NPR reporter Nina Totenberg, Moats carefully weaves this story through the difficult texture of many state and federal cases involving complicated aspects of marriage, adoption, and privacy law, and civil rights. No legal judgment stands alone, nor is any decision a simple confluence of events with a predictable outcome. The author shows how the Civil Union law was influenced by such diverse legal constructs as Vermont's Common Benefits Clause drafted in 1777, the 1948 landmark California case outlawing a ban on interracial marriage, and the recent defeat of same-sex marriage in Hawaii. Town meetings and demonstrations, lawn signs and bumper stickers, and the blood, sweat, and tears of lawyers, plaintiffs, and legislators are just some of the factors that came together to produce the compromise that is now Vermont's Civil Union.
     If you were here in 2000, you know this is not a pretty story, and the backlash was real. It showed in religious condemnation, wrath, hateful mail and phone calls, near lynch-mob mentality, and hostility so deep and intractable that it pushed undecided individuals over to the Civil Union side. Reasonable opposition got lost in the shadow of the extremes.
      And there were grace and dignity, moments of breathtaking courage as individuals rose up to bear witness in the struggle. Parents testified to their love for gay and lesbian children. Individuals outed themselves to allow their neighbors to better
understand. And there was heartache as it became clear that gay marriage would not prevail.
     Writing is rarely without bias. Although Moats "was not a big champion" of gay marriage in 1999, his inclination today is crystal clear. He repeatedly describes the dignity and "moral force" behind the civil union proponents and the hypocrisy and bigotry of the opposition. And finally he asks, along with former governor and U.S. Senator Robert Stafford, "What is the harm?"
      Although his editorials are not reprinted, Moats describes the response they received. At the Rutland Herald, the editorial policy is to print everything, subject to libel and accuracy standards. During the debate, the Herald was inundated, and some correspondence was quite offensive. Moats admits he had to distinguish between reasonable opposition and outright homophobia. He believed it was essential to allow Vermonters to express themselves, and now sees that the battle of words was "hugely educational for the people of Vermont."
     The battle for and achievement of legal recognition of same-sex relationships "ranks not just with the Stonewall riots [sic] and the murder of Harvey Milk as landmarks of gay history," writes Moats in his prologue, "but with Birmingham and Selma as landmarks of our growth toward a more complete democracy."
      Is the passion and pain soon to be replayed in Massachusetts? Or nationally? According to editor, author, and playwright David Moats, the question is not whether there will be backlash, but "how nasty will it get?" In Vermont, the author predicts we will never again see the depth of emotion felt then, but homophobia will always exist and there will always be those ready to exploit the anger and fear.

Moats's Pulitzer editorials available at www.pulitzer.org/year/2001/
editorial-writing/.

Assistant Editor Susan McMillan is a non-practicing attorney who lives in Charlotte. She and her partner entered their civil union in March, 2003.