BY MOLLY McDONOUGH
ABA JOURNAL

After a seven-year off-and-on relationship, Amy Bedell and her partner headed to Vermont to marry under the state’s civil union law.

Bedell, a third-year law student in New York, researched civil unions and knew the same-sex marriage would be tough to dissolve if the couple broke up. To dissolve a civil union, which is treated like a divorce in family courts there, one member of the couple must reside in Vermont for six months. The requirement is one year for contested dissolutions.

"I knew that the residency requirement would be a difficult burden to overcome, but I was ready to make that commitment and obviously was not contemplating divorce at the time," Bedell says.

A year later, she’s looking for a way out.

When Vermont began allowing same-sex couples to marry via civil union, gay rights advocates hailed the law as a major step forward. But many non-Vermonters like Bedell may have ended up with more commitment than they bargained for.

Of the 3,500 gay couples who have entered into civil unions since Vermont’s landmark law took effect July 1, 2000, only 600 reside in Vermont, according to Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz. She and others are beginning to hear from out-of-state couples who are having second thoughts.

The civil union statute intended for unions to be difficult to break. It was made to parallel marriage as much as possible. The rationale was that the closer to marriage, the stronger the union and all its protections for a couple and any dependents.

However, some have criticized the statute as creating a separate but equal status for same-sex unions. Unlike marriage, which is recognized in every state, civil unions are valid only in Vermont. That means a couple must go back to Vermont to get a divorce.

"This is an example of what’s wrong with trying to create two lines at the clerk’s office," says New York lawyer Evan Wolfson, director of the Freedom to Marry project. "Our country has gone down the path of separate and unequal before. It was wrong then; it is wrong now."

Wolfson acknowledges many couples are finding their unions are respected in some way, even outside of Vermont. "Many are getting some protections, some benefits and some happiness," he says. "It’s certainly a step forward, but it’s far short of the safety net that comes in marriage."

Some have told Bedell just to ignore the union, because it’s not recognized in other states. That’s not an option she wants to live with. Bedell wants closure. She also wants to make sure her civil union doesn’t come back to haunt her if, for example, she wants to enter another committed relationship, or if her partner comes back seeking property or maintenance.

However, she doesn’t want to mount a legal challenge that could result in "bad law" either. She doesn’t want a legislative change that could "ruin it" for other out-of-state couples. "At this point, I’m not really sure where to go," she says.

Middlebury, Vt., lawyer Beth Robinson, who brought the case that led to the state’s civil union statute, Baker v. Vermont, No 98-032, says there are options for nonresidents like Bedell. "We don’t know whether the courts of other states will make themselves available to dissolve civil unions. I think they should," says Robinson, who also is a founder of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, which lobbied for the civil union legislation.

There is evidence of growing support for civil unions and the rights of gay couples in general, advocates say. In early February, the American Academy of Pediatrics threw its support behind the right of gay men and lesbians to adopt their partners’ children. The group said children adopted into same-sex families "deserve the security of two legally recognized parents." COMPLETE STORY

BY MOLLY McDONOUGH
ABA JOURNAL

Joanna Jackson was bewildered by the letter she received in November from The Atlantic Monthly. The Boston-based magazine turned her down for an unpaid internship because of her age.

"Just as kindergarten is for 5-year-olds, there is an age cutoff point for our program," the letter read.

The 41-year-old mother of four had returned to Fitchburg State College to pursue a writing career. After receiving the letter, she tried to pursue a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Then she tried the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which investigates and adjudicates claims of discrimination in Massachusetts. Both organizations turned the Shirley, Mass., resident away, saying employment laws don’t cover unpaid internships. A spokesperson from the EEOC says unpaid interns may attain employee status if they show they received college credit or if their unpaid time leads to regular employment with the same employer.

"There was this huge legal loophole that allows this organization to spit in the face of all these anti-discrimination laws and get away with it," says Jackson, who wrote her state representative and was referred to a Boston lawyer who knew just what to do.

Gretchen Van Ness had seen a case like this before. In 1998 she got MCAD to recognize the case of a deaf volunteer "fired" from the Museum of Science in Boston. Roy v. Museum of Science, No. 98-13-2622 (and companion EEOC No. 16C983509). She lost the case on its merits, but the precedent for Jackson’s discrimination case was set when MCAD agreed to address the issue, Van Ness argues.

Media coverage of Jackson’s case drew the attention of another woman with a case pending before MCAD, also against The Atlantic Monthly. In that case, Susan Wozniak, a 54-year-old mother of three who resides north of Boston, claims the same internship coordinator told her she wasn’t suited for the unpaid position because of her age. Their cases are Wozniak v. The Atlantic Monthly, No. 001-332-28, and Jackson v. The Atlantic Monthly, No. 021-300-448.

Initially quoted in the Boston Globe defending the policy, magazine editor Michael Kelly later extended an invitation for Jackson to reapply for the internship. In a prepared statement, Kelly says, "We regret the letter she received; it did not accurately reflect the company’s policy or attitude."

Jackson turned the offer down and is pressing ahead with her claim. She and Wozniak say they hear similar anecdotes from the news industry and elsewhere.

"I heard the story over and over again," says Wozniak, a former reporter for a Detroit-based legal publication who raised a family before returning to school to earn a master’s degree from the Harvard University Extension School in 1998. But despite casual warnings that women her age faced such hurdles, Wozniak says she didn’t understand the implications until her encounter with The Atlantic Monthly.

"To hear so blatantly, ‘Dear, you’re not 23–older people don’t work out,’ I just knew it was wrong," says Wozniak, whose first MCAD hearing in January 2001 was rescheduled after The Atlantic Monthly failed to appear. "I felt I just had to act, and I had to act for all of us. I really couldn’t let a person bully me."

What happens next may break new ground. But it is unclear whether either woman has much of a case.

David Yamada, a labor and employment law professor at Suffolk University in Boston, says anywhere there is competition for so-called "glamour jobs," there is potential for abuse of labor and employment laws. Unpaid internships are common in the media, the legal profession and politics, but they have few protections.

"Interns fall into a certain legal void," Yamada says.

Unpaid interns often aren’t considered employees for discrimination action purposes, Yamada says. COMPLETE STORY