The right refuses to give up its argumentative crutch. W. James Antle, III:
The Judges played a role even here -- the civil unions regime was judicially imposed on a state without any mechanism for the people to vote directly; it is highly unlikely that this would have come to pass had that not been the case -- but this is the first time this decision has been made by an elected legislature in the United States.
Would same-sex marriage have arrived in Vermont in 2009 without the state supreme court forcing the issue in 1999? It's impossible to be certain, but I think probably not. So this is still, in part, a story of the leverage that judicial usurpation can produce in generating social change that legitimate representation of the people would continue to resist.
Unless one happens to be wearing a black robe, it seems the people have less and less say in government every day.