News :: GLBT
New Hampshire one step closer to equality by Lisa Keen
contributing writerThursday Apr 30, 2009 The New Hampshire Senate voted 13 to 11 April 29 to approve a bill providing for equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. The New Hampshire House approved a same-sex marriage bill on March 26. The new version, passed by the Senate, must now go back to the House for concurrence. That vote will likely take place next week.
It was a dramatic victory for New Hampshire and marks the third time a state legislature -- behind California and Vermont -- has approved an equal marriage rights bill. (California did so twice, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill both times.) The Democratic governor, John Lynch, has said he opposes same-sex marriage, but he has backed off such statements more recently. If the bill survives, New Hampshire will become the fifth state in the nation to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples - and the fourth to do so in the past year.
Just as the New Hampshire Senate began debating the same-sex marriage bill at 1:30 p.m. on April 29, one key opponent -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Deborah Reynolds -- announced she would now be supporting the bill, dramatically increasing the possibility of Senate passage.
Reynolds said that concerns she had when she initially opposed the bill in committee last week had been addressed in a proposed compromise amendment. She asked the Senate to reject the Judiciary’s original recommendation against the bill and take up a newly rewritten proposal.
The Senate quickly did so on a 13 to 11 vote.
The Senate then began debate on whether to substitute the new language for the original bill. Senator Margaret Hassan of Concord said the amended bill was a compromise that addressed many of the concerns constituents had about the original bill. She said many people have learned that the state’s existing civil union option "stigmatizes same-sex couples" and furthers discrimination. She said the bill, as reconstituted, "reaffirms the tradition and sanctity of religious marriage."
The Senate voted 13 to 11 to substitute the new language and then voted 13 to 11 to approve the bill.
The bill, as rewritten, says all citizens have a right to a civil marriage or religious marriage and that every religious denomination has the right to decide whether to perform same-sex marriages. It says that each applicant for a marriage license can choose how to be designated on the marriage license -- as either a bride, groom or spouse.
Other changes in the bill include a specification that a person must be at least 18 years old to enter into a same-sex marriage. And it provides that civil unions from other states will be recognized as marriages in New Hampshire; that civil unions under current New Hampshire law will automatically become marriages starting in 2011; and that no one can be married to more than one person at a time.
The bill provides for the law to take effect on January 1, 2010.
Prior to the vote in the Senate, the legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee voted against the same-sex marriage bill on a 3 to 2 tally, with Reynolds telling the Concord Monitor that the state is "just not there yet."
But that’s not what a statewide survey showed. A poll of voters released April 29 showed that 55 percent support allowing gay couples to obtain marriage licenses, and 39 percent oppose doing so. The poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center between April 13 and 22 and was commissioned by the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition.
Showdown in Maine
More than 3,000 people showed up at the Augusta Civic Center April 22 to register their opinions for and against allowing same-sex couples obtain marriage licenses. And on April 28, the Joint Judiciary Committee voted 11 to 3 to approve the measure.
The hearing lasted 10 hours, with the committee taking brief statements from almost 200 citizens, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The legislature is expected to vote within days on whether to advance a bill seeking to establish equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. As in Vermont and New Hampshire, the closest vote is expected in the Senate in Maine.
If the bill does pass the House and Senate in Maine, there are still question marks. For one, the state’s Democratic Governor John Baldacci has not indicated publicly whether he’ll sign the legislation. The Morning Herald newspaper in Augusta said Baldacci stated in 2005 that he was against same-sex marriage but seemed to back off that statement a year later when he was running for re-election.
The biggest wild card may be the voters. Opponents of same-sex marriage have vowed to mount a drive for a referendum, something they have done many times before on LGBT issues.
But Equality Maine Executive Director Betsy Smith said "the momentum is with us," citing the recent victories in Iowa and Vermont.
Iowa, Connecticut, New York
The Des Moines Register reported April 27 that "at least 360" same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses in Iowa that day, the first day the state Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling went into effect. The Register said only 26 of those were out-of-state couples. Most licenses were issued in Polk County, the most populous county, surrounding Des Moines. As in Massachusetts and some other states, couples who apply for marriage licenses in Iowa have a three-day waiting period between when they obtain the license and when they can be married but can seek a waiver of that waiting period from a judge. The Register and other papers reported that some judges turned down requests for the waiver.
Meanwhile, although the Connecticut Supreme Court had already ruled that the state constitution required that same-sex couples be treated the same as straight couples in marriage licensing, the state legislature last week passed a law establishing that right. And on April 28, the New York Assembly’s Judiciary Committee took up discussion of the same-sex marriage bill New York Governor David Paterson introduced there
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