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Loading ...New Hampshire senate committee rejects gay marriage
04.24.2009 8:55am EDT
(Concord, N.H.) The state Senate’s Judiciary Committee has recommended that the Legislature reject legalizing gay marriage in New Hampshire.
The committee voted 3-2 Thursday against a bill that passed the House last month. Committee Chairwoman Deborah Reynolds, a Democrat, said she doesn’t think New Hampshire is ready for gay marriage. Republicans who voted against it said marriage is an institution created and defined by God as between one man and one woman.Two years ago, the Legislature approved, and Gov. John Lynch signed, civil unions for gays, which provide all the rights of marriage, except in name.
Lynch has not said specifically whether he would veto the gay marriage bill
Score one for the cowards and the hypocrytes.
If NH “Civil Unions” truly provide all the rights, responsibilities and privileges of marriage then it seems there is not much to worry over here. The experience in NJ, however, found that “Civil Unions” regardless of intent, did not provide equality with marriage. I wonder if any studies have been done to find out ho well CUs are working in NH?
I’m not saying that we don’t need true marriage equality in NH, including the name of “marriage,” I only mean that, if CUs are working there, we should probably focus our energies elsewhere and we will likely find that when marriage equality is more common, NH will fall-in-line too.
There you have it. More than ample reason to start looking for a third party to replace the old “status quo preserving” bigots in both the Democrapic
and Repugnantcan Party.
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“The committee voted 3-2 Thursday against a bill that passed the House last month. Committee Chairwoman Deborah Reynolds, a Democrat, said she doesn’t think New Hampshire is ready for gay marriage.
(I bet people like this **** weren’t ready for integration either back in the 60’s)
Republicans who voted against it said marriage is an institution created and defined by God as between one man and one woman.”
(You mean the same God that creates plagues and hurricanes and puts power in the hands of evil trolls like most Republicans, Back-stabbing Democrats (Obama), Evangelical “christians”, Militant Moslems and other mental defectives?)
…oh, that one!
[Edited for language, sexism -JV]
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New Hampshire, should be ashamed of itself. How unenlightened can they be. There is definately a time wrap there. With institutions like Dartmouth, it is shocking that a democrate can vote against civil rigths, she should be swiftly “kicked” out of office. And John Sununu was always terrible. I will never spend any money there, and ALL LGBT AND THEIR SUPPORTERS, should BOYCOTT NEW HAMPSHIRE FOR THIS!! IT IS REALLY REPULSIVE AND DISPICABLE.
@Truth -
Hey – it is not OK to be sexist while addressing homophobia. Let’s keep the sexist slurs out of the dialogue, OK?
Speaking for God (is taking the name of the Lord in Vain) Defining marriage through religion is wrong. Marriage is a state licensed process, sanctioned by the state (NOT GOD). Religion’s definition of marriage, has no validity because it is a state defined function. Marriage Equality is a civil right,constitutionoally available to all tax paying citizens. Denying marriage equality for religious reasons is unconstitutional. Same Gender Marriage is an equal inalienable right that can not be taken away. It’s EQUALITY, not religions prerogative.
This headline might just as well read: New Hampshire Senate Committee Rejects Marriage Equality and the secular Constitutional Protectons and Inalienable Rights of just one minority. It takes away a guaranteed equal right because Their God told them so.
I think it’s time to send Deborah Reynolds packing at the next election. We voted her in, and she needs to be reminded that we’ll vote her out. There’s plenty of replacements that will stand up for ALL citizens of NH.
I heard something interesting this weekend that really made sense.
States are the ones that define what a marriage is. Religion and/or churches do not. Look at it this way. If you walk into a church what do you ask the minister to do for you? He performs a wedding ceremony, not a marriage. You can go into a church and have the ceremony but it is meaningless without the state license. So what the religions have claim over is the ceremony only.
You do not have to have the ceremony to be “married”, but you MUST have the state granted license to be. Let religion keep their wedding ceremonies, but keep them out of the law of marriage. Religion must pay no part in law. Vermont legislatures knew that with their vote as well as the Iowa Supreme Court. They both indicated that religion must pay no part in law, just as law must pay no part in religion.
It is the state that gives you a true marriage, religion give you a ceremony that is completely meaningless in the eyes of the government. Maybe religion should be the one getting out of the marriage business, not the government
“Deborah Reynolds, a Democrat, said she doesn’t think New Hampshire is ready for gay marriage.”
I guess that means New Hampshire isn’t ready to treat it’s citizens equally, nor is New Hampshire isn’t ready to embrace freedom for all of it’s people.
New Hampshire isn’t ready for our dollars or our tourism, either.
My partner and I have long wanted to spend a Christmas in New England, but we wanted to make the most of it by also getting married there. However, our options were very limited, since there are some states we’d like to visit more than others. So, we’ve been waiting…and waiting…and waiting…to see if states other than just MA and CT would legalize same-sex marriage. VT did it, much to our surprise and excitement, because it’s definitely a state we’ve wanted to visit. NH is (was, anyway) another one, but we were going to wait to see how that played out.
Well, with this development, they’ve lost their place in the running for our hard-earned money. Better luck next time, NH!
The worst is how openly theocratic the Republicans are. “It’s against God’s will”. But they wouldn’t dare say the same thing about the marriage of buddhists or hindus or other non-Christian marriages
@ jennifer –
I guess “naughty” words are ok, depending on who says them and in what “approved” context (which conforms to your personal preference) it appear in. Take note of the tags used in the Huffington Report. I’d say they’re a bit more sophisticated and mature enough to handle it.
By the way, the term B*tch is sure slung around here frequently and easily enough. A bit selective aren’t we? It’s funny how common the phrase “You’re acting like a real d*ck.” is often used in prime time television during “family hour” in sitcoms, and yet the “c” word is still considered the atom bomb in the lexicon of the “socially unacceptable” pejoritves.
I guess some people think the women’s “parts” are dirtier — including some women apparently — than men’s bits and pieces. Go figure!
Check the link out below and see what happened to poor Jane Fonda who used the dreaded “c” word.
“Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler spoke to “Access Hollywood” and expressed her disappointment that NBC censored Fonda saying “c**t” during the west coast broadcast of this morning’s show.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/14/nbc-apologizes-for-jane-f_n_86686.html
…Bad Jane, bad!
(edited for political incorrectness, honesty — ROTFLMAO)
If a legislator is against same-sex marriage because of religious conviction, all right. It’s retrograde thinking, in my view, but all right. What we cannot tolerate is the notion, so publicly and naively expressed, that civil law should be enacted based on lawmakers’ personal views of how their personal God wants everybody to behave. In truth, everybody has a different God, and some of us have none. Let’s base our laws on common sense and principles of equal justice instead of divine revelation and religious doctrines which codify intolerance. We should strive to elect lawmakers who will think and vote logically, not biblically.
I agree that this is despicable, I wrote him to ask how NH civil unions “working” when NJ civil unions are such a failure, with the same NJ employers who turned down gay employees and their partners united under NJ civil unions for company health plans, and then adding those same employees who next inform the same employers that their and their partners were legally married in Massachusetts.
The idea is for NH gov John Lynch to know that marriage opens doors that civil unions (which are not universally respected) can’t. I told him that these couples have had to explain to every person empowered to make important decisions what people’s lives like employers and insurance companies their civil unions. All the above I wrote him.
These very things come from the mouths of those same-sex couples who were in NJ civil unions testifying in front of an NJ civil unions commission convened to hear first-hand from these many couples as to just why and how NJ civil unions failed each of them as there were complaints about these NJ civil unions not being respected by employers and insurance companies doing business in the state of New Jersey.
Civil unions are not yet univeraally understood or respected but even a 5 or 10 year-old kid understands the word “married” and hopes that his or her parents can get married. The whole world instantly understands the word “marriage” and “married”. And that is the “currency” much of it operates under. Particularly in the USA.