As Gay Marriage Gains Ground in Nation, New Hampshire May Revoke
Its Law
Published: February 27, 2012 - New York Times
As same-sex
marriage supporters celebrate victories in Washington and Maryland this
month, they are keeping a wary eye on New Hampshire, where lawmakers may soon
vote to repeal the state’s two-year-old law allowing gay couples to wed.
A repeal bill appears to have a good chance of passing
in the State House and Senate, which are both controlled by Republicans. The
bigger question is whether they can muster enough votes to overcome a promised
veto from Gov. John
Lynch, a Democrat.
Based on party lines, House and Senate Republicans
both have veto-proof majorities. But this is an issue where party allegiance
gets muddy.
In a state whose “Live Free or Die” motto figures into
many a policy decision, even many opponents of same-sex marriage wish the issue
would just disappear. Republican lawmakers with libertarian leanings, a sizable
group, seem especially unhappy to be facing a repeal vote, as well as those who
maintain that cutting spending should be the legislature’s sole concern. Both
groups appear worried about a backlash from their constituents.
Representative Andrew Manuse, a Republican, said in an
e-mail that he would support a repeal because he objected to government “using
its power to redefine a religious, social and societal institution.” But he
added, “I really am not focusing on this issue.”
Should the repeal pass, New Hampshire would be the
first state in which a legislature has reversed itself on the issue of same-sex
marriage. In Maine, voters repealed a marriage law through a referendum in
November 2009, shortly after the Legislature approved it. This fall, a ballot
initiative will ask voters to make same-sex marriage legal again. The California
Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that same-sex couples there had a right to marry,
but voters banned same-sex marriage in an initiative later that year. The issue
remains in court.
In a recent poll
by the University of New Hampshire Survey
Center, 59 percent of respondents were either strongly or somewhat opposed
to repealing the law, while 32 percent said they supported repeal.
Representative David Bates, a Republican, filed the
repeal bill in January 2011, shortly after Republicans took control of the
legislature. But House leaders postponed a vote, saying they needed to focus on
the budget. Under legislative rules, the bill must come up for a vote this year,
although lawmakers could vote to table it again.
A House vote would need to take place by March 29, the
deadline for the House to send its legislation to the Senate. Mr. Bates said
Monday that he was working on ways to broaden the bill’s support in both
chambers, like changing or removing a sentence that states, “Children can only
be conceived naturally through copulation by heterosexual couples.”
“I recognize there’s things in it that some aren’t
happy with,” he said, “so we’re going to change it, get it to a place where as
many people as possible are comfortable with it.”
Mr. Bates dismissed the University of New Hampshire
poll findings, saying, “It’s just not credible to suggest the people of New
Hampshire are the aberration of the nation.”
A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this month
found that 40 percent of respondents supported same-sex marriage, while 23
percent supported civil unions for gay couples and 31 percent said there should
be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.
When New Hampshire became the sixth state to approve
same-sex marriage, in 2009 — following California, Connecticut, Iowa,
Massachusetts and Vermont — it was not an easy feat. The law passed with close
votes in both chambers, which were then under Democratic control, and with
last-minute support from Governor Lynch, who had preferred civil unions.
Since then, about 1,900 same-sex couples have wed in
the state. The repeal bill would not invalidate those marriages, but would allow
only civil unions for gay couples moving forward.
Same-sex couples can currently marry in Connecticut,
Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and the District of
Columbia. Lawmakers in Washington State approved a same-sex marriage law this
month, and Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland is poised to sign one this week,
though opponents are seeking referendums to nullify both laws. New Jersey passed
a similar bill this month as well, but Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, vetoed
it.
Meanwhile, voters in Minnesota and North Carolina will
decide in November whether to enact constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
Such bans already exist in about 30 states.
Mr. Bates said that if the repeal bill failed this
year, he would not give up. Governor Lynch is leaving office at year’s end, and
both Republicans who have entered the race to succeed him support repeal.
But Representative Seth Cohn, a libertarian Republican
who opposes the repeal, said he thought it would in fact harm the Republicans’
chance of staying in power after 2012, whether or not it succeeds.
“They want this as an election issue,” he said of the
Democrats. “I think it’s going to backlash against the Republicans who, in the
face of the polls, are choosing not to believe the average person is O.K. with
this situation.”