David Moats DEFENDER OF CIVIL UNIONS

A straight eye for a gay marriage

BY CLAIBORNE SMITH

February 29, 2004

If we had been asked to find a spokesman for the divisive cause of gay marriage, we would never, ever have imagined that journalist David Moats of Middlebury, Vt., would be the man. But here he is -- this straight, divorced, shy father of three -- in the lobby of his Manhattan hotel, saying, "In the last chapter [of my book], I quote [former Vermont U.S. Sen.] Bob Stafford, who came forward with that statement, 'What's the harm?'" He laughs, as if nothing could be more obvious. "Come on, guys," he says, "what is the harm?"

It sounds like a naive question, but occasionally questions that seem hopelessly unschooled are the most discerning. Such plain common sense suffuses Moats' new book about the tempestuous passage of the civil unions bill in Vermont, "Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage" (Harcourt, $25), and the editorials he wrote for Vermont's Rutland Herald during the controversy, editorials that earned the first Pulitzer Prize in the state's history.

Since 1992, the 56-year-old Moats has been writing editorials for the Herald, where he usually comments on the typical subjects: Gov. Howard Dean, state budget issues, health care. In December 1999, however, everything that was usual for Moats changed after the Vermont Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case of three gay and lesbian couples who had registered with their town clerks to marry but had been denied marriage licenses. The justices issued a Solomonic decree: Same-sex couples had every right to marry in Vermont, they ruled, and were entitled to every benefit of marriage that straight couples had enjoyed; in an effort to mollify Vermonters' rancor, however, they required the legislature to define the new, enlarged act of marriage in the state ("domestic partnership," for example, or "marriage"). Then they stipulated that if the legislators chose not to act on the issue for fear of not getting re-elected, the justices would do the job themselves.

Four years later, gay marriage is still a hot-button issue, one that has grabbed national attention in a contentious election year. The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently decided that bestowing the word "marriage" on same-sex couples was the only equitable solution. Moats thinks that the ruling in Vermont was more effective. "In Vermont, 'civil union' became a vehicle for compromise, and it allowed people who were uncomfortable by using the term 'marriage' to vote yes, even though civil union is the same thing as marriage," he says. "Without that as an alternative, the issue might become even more fiercely polarized very quickly. I have the feeling that we could be on the edge of a precipice with a huge culture war looming before us. It sort of all depends on how hard people like President Bush want to push it."

While the bill was being debated in the Vermont legislature, Moats began writing editorials urging Rutland Herald readers and the state legislature to endorse the bill. In a state that had suddenly become highly charged, Moats' editorials, the Pulitzer board noted, were "even-handed and influential."

It is one thing to be even-handed and influential in print, but quite another to always be so in person. One day that winter, Moats was buying groceries at the local supermarket and spied a friend at the end of the checkout line. She had surprised him by writing a letter to the Rutland Herald opposing civil unions. Rather than say hello and cause an awkward spectacle in the middle of the store, the avuncular editorialist removed himself from the line and headed straight for the potato chip aisle. He is an amiable opinion-maker who prefers to voice his opinions in his newspaper, not in his grocery store.

Not that Moats was unaware of what he was getting himself into. "When the Supreme Court ruling came out, I saw immediately that I had to ride this one hard and pay absolute close attention to not let up," he recalls. "And that's a great feeling for a journalist -- an editorial writer likes the complicated, challenging, emotionally charged story to write about." Moats says that "hundreds and hundreds" of letters poured in, and the editors made a decision to print as many of them as they could, as long as they weren't outright homophobic. "I figured it's better to let people vent," Moats says. "People know who their enemy is on both sides, and in a way it dispels a lot of pent-up feeling."

A year after the debacle passed, Moats won the Pulitzer (he spent the $7,500 award on a new bed, a canoe and a trip to visit his son in Europe). A Democratic state senator introduced a resolution to congratulate the Rutland Herald for being the first paper in Vermont to receive a Pulitzer, but the issue was still so volatile that "for a couple of hours one afternoon there was all this maneuvering about whether to pass a resolution congratulating the Rutland Herald," the bemused Moats recalls. (The resolution passed.)

"Now I've become kind of a spokesman for this issue," he says. "When I won the prize, I had a friend who said, 'Now you can be a spokesman for justice and equality.' And I thought, 'Wow, that's kind of a lofty thing. How could I presume to really do that?'" Besides, writing "Civil Wars" kept him in Vermont, and being a spokesperson for justice and equality sounds like a job that would require lots of traveling.

Claiborne Smith is a writer in New York.