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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."

In this week's Fair Game, we wrote about a weekend fundraiser Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) is holding later this summer in Woodstock for political action committee representatives and other out-of-state donors. 

Didn't make the invite list? Don't take it personally. Neither did we. 

But don't worry. Copied below, for your reference, is the invitation Welch's fundraisers have been circulating:

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Pick up this week's print issue of Seven Days and behold .... animals! Cute. Fuzzy. Ridiculously Adorable. Animals.

But there's still plenty of news — about animals, of course. And about other stuff.

• The Humane Society of Chittenden County says pit bulls get a bad rap, and therefore don't get adopted. So it's launched an ad campaign to soften the dogs' rough reputation.
• The state Legislature passed a number of animal-themed laws this year, including ones to deal with the problems of feral hogs, nuisance bears and unlicensed dog breeders.
• With just two dog runs, Burlington canine owners want more Queen City park space to go to the dogs.
• In nonanimal news, Ken Picard follows up on our illegal massage-parlor series by asking the question, "Is it possible to keep erotic massage parlors out of Vermont?"
• And in Fair Game (which comes with the best Farm Bill headline ever), Paul Heintz looks at Peter Welch's dairy-versus-food stamps dilemma, Welch's high-priced Vermont fundraiser for D.C. lobbyists, and layoffs at the Rutland Herald.

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.

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One may be the loneliest number, but it seems to be Sen. Bernie Sanders' favorite.

In perhaps the least controversial confirmation vote of President Obama's second-term cabinet, the Vermont independent cast the sole vote Tuesday afternoon against the president's Commerce Department nominee: Penny Pritzker, the Chicago hotel heiress and Obama's 2008 national finance chairwoman.

The vote was 97 to 1, with two senators absent.

So what got under Sanders' skin?

A Tuesday story in Politico with the provocative headline, "On Penny Pritzker, where's the outrage?" reporters Alexander Burns and Burgess Everett list plenty of good reasons to vote no. They note that she "understated her income by tens of millions of dollars, clashed openly with organized labor, benefited from offshore tax havens and invested in financial instruments that helped precipitate the 2008 financial meltdown."

(Burns and Everett also point out, incidentally, that Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican, appeared to be the only one who'd vote no — though, of course, their prediction wasn't quite on the mark.)

For Sanders, it seems to be her labor record — specifically, that of the Hyatt Hotel chain, which her family founded and on whose board she serves. As CNN reported in May, the hospitality union UNITE HERE called Hyatt "the worst hotel employer in America."

Passers-by cringed and covered their ears as opponents of the F-35 staged a noisy demonstration in Burlington's City Hall Park on Tuesday morning.

It wasn't the chanting and drum-banging typically heard at protests that was causing those within earshot to wince in pain. It was what organizers said was a replication of the roar the F-35 would produce over downtown Winooski at an altitude of 1000 feet after takeoff from the Vermont Air Guard base at Burlington International Airport.

"You're making my walls vibrate!" a nearby resident complained to protest leader Chris Hurd at the conclusion of the six-minute-long blast of sound. David Harrison, who lives at 141 Main Street, told Hurd, "You're disturbing businesses across the street."

A couple of the F-35 opponents gathered for the media event responded in unison, "That's exactly the point."

Vermont environmentalists are ramping up their opposition to a proposed natural gas pipeline that, if approved, would extend Vermont Gas’s service south into Addison County.

A group of 20 to 30 protesters took to the halls of the Department of Public Service yesterday, asking the DPS to reconsider its support of the project and complaining that the process for approving the pipeline — overseen by the Public Service Board — is neither transparent nor inclusive for Vermont citizens. 

VTDigger's Andrew Stein has the skinny on the protest, which came in response to pre-filed written testimony the DPS submitted to the PSB earlier this month. That testimony, activists claim, doesn't represent the concerns of Vermonters opposing the project. As Stein reports:

“The Public Service Board process is not participatory, and it’s not accessible,” said [23-year-old Vergennes resident Avery] Pittman. “You have to have enormous financial and human resources to intervene. Now, our only recourse is the Department of Public Service, which ostensibly represents the people of Vermont. But the testimony they submitted on June 14 is a complete rubber stamp of this project.”

Updated with PDF of legal memo

The Burlington city council voted 11-3 on Monday night to release a formerly secret memo from the city attorney's office defending the constitutionality of the Church Street Marketplace no-trespass ordinance.

Councilor Norm Blais (D-Ward 6), who joined fellow Democrats Dave Hartnett (Ward 4) and Chip Mason (Ward 5) in the minority, said proponents of keeping the document confidential were not trying to hide something. "There's never been anything to hide but always something to protect," Blais declared, referring to the claim of attorney-client privilege.

He said that assertion of privileged communication, which had been used to justify the secrecy of the memo, was based on the council's "duty to protect our ability to converse in a confidential manner with our attorneys."

Blais' claim of "nothing to hide" appears to be largely substantiated by the contents of the 14-page memo written by Assistant City Attorney Gregg Meyer and dated June 12, 2012. Download No Trespass Memo and Proposed Ordinance

One point that could be seen as potentially problematic from the city's perspective is contained in a footnote on page 10, in which Meyer writes that proposed changes he suggests for a draft version of the Marketplace ordinance "could be applied to the city hall park and library ordinances to minimize risk of constitutional challenges as well."

The city council has not amended those earlier no-trespass ordinances to reflect the suggestions Meyer makes. City Councilor Karen Paul (I-Ward 6) says Meyer's footnote was probably the substantive reason why many councilors did not want the memo released.

The Burlington city council seemed set on Monday night to give unanimous approval to Mayor Miro Weinberger's choice of Chapin Spencer as director of the Department of Public Works. In comments on Spencer's qualifications, councilors expressed admiration for his work as director of the bicycle/pedestrian advocacy group Local Motion and for his other forms of service to the city.

Then Councilor Rachel Siegel spoke.

The Ward 3 Progressive caught many in the audience by surprise in announcing she would vote against Spencer's appointment. Like her colleagues who had spoken earlier, Siegel praised Spencer's record and said she was confident he is a good choice to lead Public Works.

"I will vote against the appointment in order to vote against the mayor's process," Siegel explained. 

Outside on the Church Street Marketplace, lights shone from crowded bars and restaurants and amplified bands played as the second longest day of the year gave way to evening.

Inside city hall, World Refugee Day was being marked. Survivors of wars in Somalia, Iraq and Burma were telling of their flights to safety in Vermont. All three had lost friends and family members and had experienced extreme violence unimaginable to most Vermonters. Each also mentioned the absence of a convenience — electricity — that was brightly present on the Marketplace.

Zar Ni Maw (pictured), born in the jungle to parents on the run from a military dictatorship, said she had studied the Burmese alphabet in a textbook shared by 15 children. "We could only study in the day," she recounted. "There was no electricity."