Check out this fastening article 'Gay Couples are Holding Together' from the Rutland Herald.

You know the gay couple down the street from you? You envy their garden; you envy their clothes. You saw the inside of their home, and you envy their furniture. Now, with the release of the 2002 Vermont vital statistics, you can envy their relationship. Forget the phony figures cooked up by organizations like the Family Research Council that warn about the alleged instability of gay relationships.

Vermont has been the only place in America where we have amassed hard, cold facts about gay couples, the only place where, for the last four years, gay relationships have been recognized by the state as equal to straight relationships. And the data is in: Gay couples are doing much better than straight couples are.

A year ago in The Valley News, I looked at Vermont's vital statistics on
marriage and civil union from 1998 to 2001. (See http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/swayne/swayne3.html.) Civil union
was still in its infancy, and it was too soon to draw comparisons between
divorce and dissolution rates. But those earlier numbers suggested that gay
couples were not undermining marriage in Vermont, as straight couples continued to marry in steady numbers.

Before turning to the 2002 numbers, some long-term perspective on
marriage in Vermont is warranted. The year 1988 was a high water mark. It was the first year marriages numbered over 6,000; that year, the marriage rate of 11.1 persons per 1,000 population was also the highest Vermont had reached
since 1940. Since then, the number of marriages has hovered around 6,000,
while the rate per 1,000 has steadily dropped.

The 2002 numbers fit well within this larger picture. The number of marriages
increased slightly from those in 2001 (6,011 vs. 5,983), while the rate was
9.8 per 1,000, the same as it was in 2001 (which is still higher than the
U.S. rate of 7.8 in 2002 and 8.4 in 2001). In 2002, the number of civil unions dropped, from 1,875 to 1,707. Out-of-state couples make up almost 90
percent of all civil unions, and the overwhelming majority of these couples
are lesbians. These numbers show that civil union hasn't stopped straight
couples from marrying in Vermont. It also hasn't stopped them from divorcing, either. In 2002, 3,633 Vermont couples got married; that same year, 2,653 got divorced. Imagine seven Vermont couples in a room; five of them will get divorced. And some of these folks know this, because they've been divorced already; just under half of the marriages in 2002 were firsts for both bride and groom.

Contrast this with gay couples. One hundred sixty-one Vermont couples entered
into a civil union in 2002; that same year, nine dissolved their civil unions. Eighteen couples are in a room; for fourteen of them, this is their first legalized commitment; only one of them will divorce.

Of course, civil unions only go back to 2000, so the comparison above cannot
account for all of the variables. For example, we don't know how long two
people have been together prior to the legalization of their relationship.
The fact that the median for marriage in Vermont is 30-34 years and the
median for civil union is 35-39 years suggests that some gay couples may
have already clocked more years together as partners than their straight
counterparts have. But there are other statistics that allow us to get closer to comparing apples with apples. In 2002, 353 straight Vermont couples got divorced after having been married for two years or less. Take this number, and straight Vermont couples are nearly twice as likely to dissolve their unions than are gay couples that have been legally united the same length of time.
So perhaps the defenders of traditional marriage have a point. Gay couples
undermine marriage by succeeding in civil union at levels straight married
couples can only dream of, succeeding by and large without the help of
our churches, chapels, synagogues and mosques.

Which brings me to one last statistic. In 2001, 58.9 percent of straight
marriages were civil ceremonies, solemnized without the benefit of organized
religion. In 2002, that figure edged up to 60.9 percent. And I'm fairly confident that the rate of civil ceremonies for civil unions is even higher than the rate for marriages.

The debate over same-sex marriage is often a proxy debate over how to separate civil marriage from holy matrimony. As it happens, these two entities have been drifting apart on their own, with no help from gay Americans. But the debate has also entertained two other claims: 1) Same-sex marriage undermines marriage; and 2) gay men and lesbians are ill-suited for marriage.
In a few years, we'll have more statistics from our neighbor to the south,
as marriage for gay couples is legal in Massachusetts. But the Vermont
vital statistics not only refute the charge that gays will undermine marriage.
They suggest that, if one wants to slow the tide of divorce, the state should
allow gay couples to marry. However one approaches the statistics, the
same basic point emerges: Gay Vermont couples are treating civil union much
more seriously than straight Vermont couples are treating marriage.

Steve Swayne is an assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College. He
lives in Woodstock.