BRATTLEBORO -- The first legally recognized same-sex union in the country officially ended yesterday.
Carolyn Conrad and Kathleen Peterson, both of Brattleboro, had entered into a civil union shortly after midnight on July 1, 2000, the day Vermont's first-in-the-nation law went into effect.
Conrad filed to end the union in October 2005. The couple have been separated for a year. A judge yesterday granted the request for a dissolution. The details of the agreement were not available.
Beth Robinson, chairwoman of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force, said the union's end shows that the law is working the way it was intended.
``One of the goals was to create a mechanism to protect people in a relationship and create a mechanism to help people dissolve relationships," she said. ``Same-sex relationships are no different than heterosexual relationships; sometimes they last, sometimes they don't."
The couple had been in a relationship for five years before Vermont became the first state to offer civil unions.
More than 7,500 civil unions have been formed in Vermont since the end of 2004, and 78 have been dissolved.
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