This Week's Issue: A Neighborly Noise Feud in Burlington, 'Border' Security and Maple Saplings

Find these news and politics stories in this week's Seven Days...

• In Burlington, one resident has kept up her fight against a neighbor's backyard guitar-building shop for a year and a half. The case could reach the Vermont Supreme Court.
• The Department of Homeland Security has dropped plans to run an "internal checkpoint" 100 miles from the Vermont/Quebec border — though it's too late for one man who faces deportation. 
• University of Vermont researchers are working on technology to allow maple farmers to harvest sap from young saplings rather than the less-plentiful mature trees.
• As part of the love and marriage issue, here's a look back at the path to marriage equality for same-sex couples.
• In Fair Game: How one soldier's allegations of sexual assault changed the Vermont National Guard. Plus, find out who's giving big bucks to Gov. Peter Shumlin's Democratic Governors Association, and why the Committee on Committees isn't a committee — at least when it comes to letting the public and press inside. 

This Week's Issue: Methadone, Molly and More

Grab your favorite pumpkin-flavored coffee drink — that little chill in the morning means fall is here, and the first Seven Days of the season hit the streets today. Here's what you'll find for news and politics this week:

• In Fair Game, Paul Heintz reports that a program to encourage charitable giving by state employees is funding two anti-gay organizations classified as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Plus, more staff changes at Vermont Public Radio, the Rutland Herald and here at Seven Days.
• A new methadone clinic to help treat drug addicts is now open in South Burlington, despite the ongoing opposition of some neighbors. Ken Picard talks to two patients.
• Vermont cops and docs are on the lookout for "molly," a powdered form of ecstasy. Kids these days.
• In archaeology news, the Abenaki may not have been the only early inhabitants of Vermont.

Pick up this week's issue in print, online or on the app.

This week's cover image by the late Stephen Huneck is courtesy of the Stephen Huneck Gallery. See this week's cover story about the future of Dog Mountain.

For Bi-National, Same-Sex Couples in Vermont, Court's DOMA Decision is a Reprieve

Barely a month ago, Michael Upton's hopes of living in the same country as his partner were dashed.

Since 2008, the South Hero resident had been in a relationship with Jandui Cavalcante, a Brazilian national. But because they're gay — and the federal government didn't recognize their relationship — Cavalcante couldn't apply for a green card.

Their best bet seemed to be an amendment Sen. Patrick Leahy had introduced to comprehensive immigration reform legislation extending new rights to binational, gay couples. But after an impassioned debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Leahy's fellow Democrats bailed on him and he withdrew his amendment. 

On Wednesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, the point became moot.

"It's very exciting. I could feel the huge sigh of relief 5000 miles away as tens of thousands of people realized this nightmare has a near end in sight," said Upton, who is currently visiting Cavalcante in Brazil. "We were together in Rio de Janeiro, watching SCOTUSblog line-by-line."

Vermonters Celebrate Supreme Court Decision Overturning DOMA

This morning, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned DOMA, the law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage. 

A group of same-sex marriage supporters gathered at RU12? Community Center in Burlington to follow the proceedings. The two Supreme Court marriage decisions — one on DOMA, the other on California's Proposition 8 — were expected shortly after 10 a.m. The group at RU12? had set up two laptops on a conference table to follow along on NBC News and SCOTUSblog's live blog.

RU12? volunteer Susanna Weller (foreground, right), who works for the Vermont Department of Health, organized the gathering. "I couldn't sit by myself in my office and be 'working,'" she said. "I needed to be with my community."

The group of nine supporters and five reporters bantered nervously until 10:01, when Weller read aloud from SCOTUS blog, announcing the first opinion: "It's DOMA," she said. The room went silent.

When it became clear that the court had overturned DOMA, the audience cheered and cried. The nuances of the decision weren't immediately apparent, and it was still uncertain at that point how the court would rule on Proposition 8, but the audience was jubilant.

Barb Dozetos, a marketing consultant who once edited Vermont's now-defunct GLBT newspaper Out in the Mountains (pictured, talking with Kristin Carlson of WCAX), told reporters that the decision signaled that there was only one "flavor" of marriage. "Marriage is marriage, period," she said. "It basically finally takes the word 'gay' out from in front of marriage. That's what this means."

Find the latest on the rulings on SCOTUSblog here.

On Gay Rights and Immigration, Leahy Sticks it to Fellow Democrats

As the Senate Judiciary Committee wrapped up its weeks-long debate over comprehensive immigration reform late Tuesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) did a rare and remarkable thing: He forced four Democrats who generally support gay rights to publicly acknowledge they would vote against a controversial gay rights measure.

In the backslapping world of the U.S. Senate, in which members of the same party typically look out for one another's political interests, that ain't how it usually works.

"It's courageous," former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank tells Seven Days. "The hardest thing to do is to have to break with some of your friends."

The issue at hand, as we touched on briefly in this week's Fair Game, was a pair of amendments Leahy authored that would extend to gay Americans the right to request green cards for their foreign-born partners.

Leahy's been pushing the idea for a decade — first as a stand-alone bill called the "Uniting American Families Act." When its provisions weren't included in the comprehensive immigration bill drafted by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight," Leahy filed two amendments to the bill that would accomplish the same.

But the pushback from Senate Republicans was fierce — and even Democratic members of the Gang of Eight warned that if offered and accepted, Leahy's amendments could topple the delicate balance of immigration reform yet again. Those Democrats were so nervous Leahy would force a vote on the matter, they asked the White House to intervene — which it did Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

"The real question was, 'Will Leahy buck the pressure and offer this?' Not even will he call for a vote, but will he offer it?" says Heather Cronk, co-director of the LGBT social justice group GetEqual, who attended Tuesday's mark-up.

Sure enough, after dispensing with nearly 300 other amendments to the immigration bill, the Judiciary Committee chairman called up one last amendment late Tuesday: his own.

"I don't want to be the senator who asks Americans to choose between the love of their life and the love of their country," Leahy said. "Discriminating against a segment of Americans because of who they love is a travesty and is ripping many American families apart."

Then, without indicating whether he would force a vote on it, the senator from Vermont said, "I know this issue is important to many who serve on this committee. Before I speak further, I'd like to hear from other members — especially from those who drafted this bill — who, for whatever reason, decided not to remove discrimination from our current immigration system in their legislative proposal."

Translation: If you're against this, speak up now and explain yourself. I won't let you quietly dodge the issue.

Four Democrats did.

Wildflower Inn Up for Family-Friendly Award — Lawsuit and All

The Vermont inn that made headlines for refusing to host a same-sex wedding reception is campaigning for a new title: The Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville is vying for the "readers' choice" award for favorite New England family resort on About.com. And so far it's winning: As of today, it's 14 points ahead of the other four nominees in the polls. 

Asked whether the inn's family-friendly reputation extends to same-sex families, owner Jim O'Reilly says, "Oh, absolutely. The thing that came out about the wedding thing has nothing to do with our families that visit with us, whether they’re same-sex or heterosexual. We treat them all, everybody, the same."

"The wedding thing" refers to the lawsuit that lesbian couple Ming and Kate Linsley brought against the Wildflower Inn after the owners refused, in 2010, to host the couple's same-sex wedding reception. The lawsuit resulted in a settlement last August in which the Wildflower Inn agreed to pay the Vermont Human Rights Commission a $10,000 civil penalty and donate $20,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the couple a charitable trust established by the couple.

The inn's owners also said they would no longer host weddings or receptions at the Lyndonville getaway. 

The owners, Jim and Mary O'Reilly, cropped up again in the news a few weeks later: They appeared in a television ad in Maine opposing same-sex marriage. The Portland Press Herald called the ad "misleading" and "mostly false", because the innkeepers were sued for breaking a 1992 antidiscrimination law, not Vermont's 2009 same-sex marriage law.