Vermont Makes History With The Help of Evann Orleck-Jetter

This week Vermont became the first state to legalize gay marriage through legislative action instead of court order. Vermont has always been a few steps ahead of the game, they were the first state to legalize civil unions as well. This next step shows that politicians can make the right decisions and states such as New York and California have taken notice. As a New Yorker I'm excited to hear that Gov. Paterson is pushing to bring the decision to Albany where he says “It’s like professional wrestling. You know who’s going to win before the match starts.”
On Democracy Now this week Amy Goodman interviewed Evann Orleck-Jetter a 12 year old with lesbian parents who had testified at the Vermont hearings on gay marriage last month. Many of the legislators, when asked what had changed their views and lead them to vote for gay marriage, cited Evann as their main influence. I thought it was powerful in this interview when Evann notes that many who fight against gay marriage say they're protecting the children. Evann points out that they certainly aren't protecting her, without marriage rights raising, protecting, and caring for your own children can be very difficult. I've often wondered about this issue - can explaining gay marriage to your kids be more difficult than explaining love, death, how babies are made, cancer, how an airplane flies, why clouds exist, or any number of other things kids want to know about. I doubt it would be very high up on things that kids think are confusing.

This video of Evann's interview should start at 27 minutes in,,, if it doesn't just click 27 minutes in.