Mike Gabbard is getting big-time now. Fresh from starting a New Zealand chapter of his Stop Promoting Homosexuality International, the Hawai'i anti-gay campaigner has now been funded by an Ohio group to lobby Vermonters against legal gay and lesbian marriage. The Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values of Ohio shelled out $40,000 to send an open letter from Hawai'ians -- Gabbard, that is, wearing his hat as chair of Alliance for Traditional Marriage Hawai'i -- to each and every resident of Vermont (which luckily for them has a relatively small population), encouraging Vermonters to contact their own state's anti-marriage group, the Burlington-based Take It To the People. There's a heavy irony in Gabbard taking part in this particular campaign, after all the loud complaints in Hawai'i about mainland groups' involvement in the same-gender marriage issue there.

Obviously the citizens of Vermont have little to say about what their state Supreme Court will decide in the current lawsuit brought by three gay and lesbian couples seeking marriage licenses -- indeed, despite Gabbard's declaration of victory, Hawaii's own state Supreme Court has yet to issue its final word on the similar 1993 lawsuit there (Baehr v. Miike). But Vermonters do at least have the option to lobby for a measure now in their state legislature to explicitly prohibit same-gender marriages.

The letter says, "We believe that traditional marriage, between one man and one woman, richly benefits our society. We believe that traditional marriage provides the best place to raise and nurture our children. We have successfully defended Traditional Marriage in Hawai'i. We wish you the same success in Vermont." The successful defense referred to here is the ballot initiative passed by a large margin in November, to authorize the Hawai'i state legislature to amend the state constitution to restrict legal marriage to one man and one woman (something Hawai'i had already done by statute). Alliance for Traditional Marriage was one of several religious right groups which led the campaign for that ballot measure.

Gabbard told reporters that the letter "will make people more aware of this issue, and hopefully spark some interest with a grassroots effort. That's how we won in Hawai'i." (That and a seven-figure sum of contributions from national religious right groups.)

Yet according to a Reuters report, the flyer thus far has primarily sparked mainstream politicians to speak up for the other side, naming Democrats Vermont House Speaker Michael Obuchowski and Lieutenant Governor Doug Racine.

Take It To The People's President Mary Schroyer issued a statement saying, "The letter from Hawai'i rightly focuses Vermont's attention on this important national issue now before the [state] Supreme Court. If same-sex marriages are legitimized in Vermont, 18 other states will be compelled to recognize their validity. Vermont would become a center for same-sex marriages both nationally and internationally."

Presumably those "18 other states" are the ones which have yet to enact explicit prohibitions against legal recognition of same-gender marriages another state may someday perform. In fact, even they have already been empowered by the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to choose to ignore another state's gay and lesbian marriages -- at least until such time as some same-gender couple is able to legally marry in one state, have that marriage ignored in another state, and convince a federal court to strike DOMA down for violating the national Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause.

Meanwhile, Vermont's own version of DOMA, introduced by state Representative George Schiavone (R-Shelburne), has 57 co-sponsors but is not expected to be considered in the current session. It's more a hole card in preparation for the possibility that the state Supreme Court refers the marriage question back to the legislature.