1999—The so-called Common Benefits Clause of the Vermont constitution—which actually bears the title “Government for the people; they may change it”—declares that “government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community, and not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single person, family, or set of persons, who are a part only of that community; and that the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right, to reform or alter government, in such manner as shall be, by that community, judged most conducive to the public weal.” In Baker v. State, the Vermont supreme court somehow finds in this declaration a requirement that the benefits and protections of marriage be extended to same-sex couples. So much for the “indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right” of the people of the Vermont to reform or alter—or to maintain—their government’s marriage laws “in such manner as shall be, by [them], judged most conducive to the public weal.”
The only dissenter complains that the majority did not go far enough—that it shouldn’t have left the legislature the option of creating an alternative statutory scheme parallel to marriage but should instead have required that marriage licenses be made available to same-sex couples.