he Vermont legislature, knuckling under to the state's supreme court, has approved "civil unions" for same-sex partners. Our guess is that this particular train hasn't made its final stop. Vermont is probably going to end up giving homosexuals the word "marriage" as well as the reality.

The supreme court's order was that the legislature had to enact same-sex marriage or something that comes with the same package of rights. The gay-activist litigators have already pointed out, quite correctly, that a major attribute of marriage (and of the rights that go with it) is portability: If you're married in Vermont, you're married when you go to Kansas, too. Now, the Vermont legislature can't make same-sex marriages portable all by itself. The federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, allows states not to recognize other states' same-sex unions. But Vermont can be asked to do as much as it can to foster portability, which would entail calling these unions "marriages."

If Vermont recognizes same-sex marriages, a homosexual couple can then go to another state and file a suit against the Defense of Marriage Act. That act might very well be struck down in federal court (not that there's any good reason that it should). Which means that gay marriage may be coming not just to Vermont, but to all fifty states.

Annals of Dementia
From Mary McGrory's Thursday Washington Post column: "On the Senate floor, Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is just as much a dictator as Castro. . ." Right, except for that bit about jailing or killing opponents.

Counting Beans
The Census Bureau will soon be able to tell us the percentage of non-Hispanic whites living in Jacksonville, Fla., the number of black folks in Eugene, Ore., and rate of population increase for Asian Americans in Topeka, Kan. But here's one figure census bureaucrats probably don't want you to know: 77 percent of voters think the government should quit asking about race.

That's the finding of a new Zogby poll commissioned by Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute. Support for removing the race question on government forms is broad and deep: 72 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of blacks, 82 percent of Asians, 59 percent of Hispanics, and 78 percent of "multiracial" respondents.

When polltakers were told that eliminating the race question could prevent officials from identifying some forms of discrimination, 58 percent said they support getting rid of them anyway, including 54 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of Hispanics, 59 percent of blacks, 69 percent of Asians, and 70 percent of "multiracial" respondents.

Finally, 91 percent — including huge majorities of all groups (more than 85 percent in each) — believe the government should not determine by itself an individual's race if he refuses to volunteer it. This is exactly what the government does, of course, when people refuse to participate in its bean counting.

On a related note, Connerly is scheduled to appear on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" this Sunday night at 8pm and 11pm EST to discuss his new book, Creating Equal.