In honor of the 25th anniversary of marriage equality in Vermont, Special Collections hosted a panel of speakers and an open house related to its archive of the Vermont Freedom to Marry task force. Over 75 community members and Middlebury students gathered in the lower level of Davis Family Library on April 28 to celebrate the victory for civil rights and to reflect on what it took to succeed.
Four of the original plaintiffs in Baker v. State spoke at the panel, providing firsthand perspectives on the landmark Vermont Supreme Court case that ordered the legislature to guarantee equal protections in marriage to same-sex couples.
“When the lawsuit was filed in Ripton County, where Peter and I lived, we were informed that they were looking for a male couple because they had two female couples already. And we realized that we needed to do that,” said Stan Baker, a former clinician and plaintiff in the Vermont Freedom to Marry lawsuit.
Baker is now married to his husband Peter Harrigan, who attended the panel along with two of the other original plaintiffs, Holly Puterbaugh and Lois Farnham. They cited a workshop they attended held by former attorneys Beth Robinson and Susan Murray, who were also panelists, as inspiration for joining the lawsuit.
“On the way home, I don't know which of us said first, ‘I think I want to get involved in this Freedom to Marry task force,’ but the other one said ‘Good, because I want to do it too,” Puterbaugh explained.
“Believe it or not, a couple of younger folks said we were their role models and we should do something like this,” Farnham said. The pair has been together for 52 years since meeting at the University of Vermont in the 1970s.
In 2009, after another statewide push and campaign at the Vermont legislature, the state passed full marriage equality.
The journey to get there was not an easy one. Every panelist shared examples of their worst memories from the fight for equal rights, whether it was abuse from passersby at state fairs, public scrutiny and attacks in the media, or what it might mean to fail.
Robinson, who currently sits as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, shared her hardest moment in the campaign. She told the audience her story from 2009 of having to prepare for the possibility that the governor’s veto of marriage equality would not be overturned in the legislature.
“My worst moment in this entire 15-plus-year saga was Monday night, because when I went home,” she explained, “I had to write the statement I would give to the press if we lost. I was crying for the whole thing.”
Her best moment? Tuesday: the day the legislature overrode the veto and enshrined the right to marriage equality into Vermont law.
“We had the votes. They were shaky, but we had them,” she added.
Although Special Collections officially billed the event as a panel, it turned into a reunion for many attendees. Former activists, organizers, plaintiffs and state legislators who fought side-by-side for equal rights drove hours to see each other after years apart.
“It was more of a reunion than I expected it to be. People came from hours away to attend, which I think is really cool,” said Joseph Watson, the preservation manager at Special Collections who also participated in the Freedom to Marry movement. “It was great to see people that we had worked so closely together in the cause.”
Seeing so many figures central to the fight for marriage equality was also impactful for younger attendees who had been just children during Baker v. Vermont and the 2009 marriage vote.
“I hadn't met them. I just sort of knew of them, so I was honestly a little bit starstruck,” said Processing Archivist Anna Hurd, who organized the collection. “So it was sort of like, ‘Oh my God, you’re Stan Baker of Baker v. State,’ but everyone was just so warm and appreciative and happy to be there.”
Besides the raucous panel, the event’s centerpiece was the task force’s archive, which Hurd spent months collecting, organizing and making presentable for visitors and future researchers alike. Watson had a prior connection to Beth Robinson, and reached out to her to propose that Middlebury house the archives. After reviewing other potential sites, Robinson agreed that Middlebury’s Special Collections would be the best choice.
Hurd and Watson first schlepped to Robinson’s house, taking bin after bin of legal documents, parade banners, volunteer logs and campaign paraphernalia — even a county fair booth made the journey back to Middlebury. Hurd spent months piecing the collection together, which spanned 15 years of activism.
“Almost everything we collect, we collect to keep permanently. And it's impossible to say two generations from now what people would be interested in. There might be a great deal of interest in it,” Watson explained. “But they'll have the archive to answer whatever questions they have.”
One special object from the collection that Hurd, Watson and some attendees of the panel hold dear is Beth Robinson’s binder from oral arguments at the Vermont Supreme Court for Baker v. State. It still holds her notes and remarks from that day in which she argued for equality under the law in front of the state’s highest court — and won.
Although they will soon move on from researching the collection for Middlebury, an archivist’s work may never truly be over.
“At the event the other day, a couple of people came up to us and were like, ‘I still have things in my attic in my garage. Do you want them?’” Hurd said, noting that the still-growing collection already has over 100 boxes.
Although the Vermont Freedom to Marry task force no longer meets following their 2009 victory and the national legalization of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, the heart and soul of a movement that fought adamantly for equality now lives on in the accessible boxes, shelves and even freezers of Middlebury Special Collections.
Ryan McElroy '25 (he/him) is the Editor in Chief.
Ryan has previously served as a Managing Editor, News Editor and Staff Writer. He is majoring in history with a minor in art history. Outside of The Campus, he is co-captain of Middlebury Mock Trial and previously worked as Head Advising Fellow for Matriculate and a research assistant in the History department. Last summer Ryan interned as a global risk analyst at a bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.
