NPR: How Vermont's 'Civil' War Fueled The Gay Marriage Movement

It wasn't so long ago that a handful of Vermont legislators in a shabby Statehouse committee room struggled over what to call their proposal to give marriage-like rights to the state's gay and lesbian residents.

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Eventually, on a February day in 2000, they settled on "civil unions."

It seemed radical at the time, and tore the state apart so wretchedly and publicly that historians were hard-pressed to come up with a parallel. Imagine the recent Wisconsin union wars, only injected with sex and religion.

But the Legislature in Montpelier approved An Act Relating to Civil Unions, and Dean quietly signed it later that spring, making it the first law in the nation to extend marriage-like rights of any kind to gay and lesbian couples.

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http://www.npr.org/2013/03/18/174651233/how-vermonts-civil-war-fueled-the-gay-marriage-movement