Dean would not push for law on gay marriage [View All]

MONTPELIER — While former Gov. Howard Dean opposes efforts to ban gay marriages — such as those suggested this week by President Bush — the presidential hopeful won’t push for a federal law making them legal, his campaign said Thursday.

According to campaign manager Joe Trippi, Dean believes that all people are entitled to equal treatment under the law, but the question of what constitutes marriage is a matter for the states to sort out.

In the end, Trippi said, the five-term governor would do nothing to prevent states from granting the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex partners, but he does not think the federal government should dictate what marriage is.

“What we’d try to do is make sure every American has the same rights under the law,” Trippi said. “Yes, the governor would oppose the kind of law the president talked about. But the last time he checked, you don’t go to the federal government for your marriage license.”

The position is akin to the often tenuous one Dean took during the wrenching debates over Vermont’s landmark civil unions law. Shortly after the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples must be granted the same rights and responsibilities as their heterosexual counterparts, Dean told reporters that while the decision was a correct one, gay marriages made him “uncomfortable, the same as anyone else.”

more: http://www.rutlandherald.com/News/Story/69474.html