Gay marriage caught fire after NH House reversal

Gay marriage caught fire after NH House reversal
By Norma Love
Copyright by The Associated Press
May 20, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/3502


CONCORD, N.H.—On March 26, New Hampshire’s House defeated a bill legalizing gay marriage by one vote, then reconsidered and passed it, to the surprise of many.

Two months and many rounds of intensive lobbying later, New Hampshire is poised to become the sixth state to let same-sex couples marry.

Gov. John Lynch said last Thursday he will sign the bill provided that legislators add language to better protect churches and their employees against lawsuits if their beliefs preclude them from marrying gays.

Lynch’s suggested amendment was expected to move through the House and Senate quickly.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a done deal, but my gut tells me it has a better than 50-50 chance of making it to the governor’s desk,” said Kevin Smith, executive director of gay marriage opponent Cornerstone Policy Research.

Gay marriage’s journey through the Legislature is a story of near death and revival. It is a story of quiet, persistent lobbying by gay rights groups to move beyond talk to law.

“It didn’t happen overnight,” Mo Baxley, executive director of the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition, said of 25 years of work by gay groups.

Two years ago, after Democrats took control of the House and Senate for the first time since the 19th century, advocates sensed an opportunity and filed a gay marriage bill. But the Legislature instead chose to follow Vermont’s example and enact civil unions. That bill’s passage also surprised many.

And as he did this year, Lynch needed time before deciding to sign the bill.

Though civil unions had been legal only since the start of 2008, state Rep. Jim Splaine introduced a new gay marriage bill for 2009. The Portsmouth Democrat argued that civil unions—while an important step—did not provide equal rights to gays.

State Sen. Bette Lasky, who shepherded the civil unions bill through the House, was surprised.

“Civil unions had passed and it was a momentous event. We went from nothing to civil unions,” said Lasky (D-Nashua).

Smith didn’t expect it to pass.

“The prevailing wisdom was it would make it through the House, but not the Senate,” he said.

In fact, until the morning of the vote on April 29, it appeared the Senate would kill it. No Republicans were expected to support it and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Deborah Reynolds, D-Plymouth, had announced the previous week she didn’t think New Hampshire was ready for gay marriage. With her support, her committee recommended killing it.

But the morning of the vote, the buzz in the chamber told a different story. Overnight, an amendment had been drafted that satisfied Reynolds and the 12 other Democrats needed to pass it.

The bill squeaked out of the Senate, but still needed House approval of the amendment. The day the House voted, Democratic leaders scrambled to fix errors in the already passed bill. The Senate put the fixes on another bill and sent it over the same day so the House could take up both.

The House passed gay marriage by 11 votes—four more than in March—and the fixes by 49 votes.

The measures create two marriage licenses, one civil and one religious. They allow churches to decide whether they will conduct religious marriages for same-sex couples. Civil marriages would be available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.

New Hampshire supporters still faced a huge hurdle—winning support from Lynch, who had said he opposed same-sex marriage. On Thursday, Lynch said he had decided to view the issue “through a broader lens.”

Lynch said he would sign the bill if it was changed to more closely resemble Connecticut’s law, which he said contains better protections for churches.