Live free or die
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:17 am
REPEAL REJECTED: New Hampshire Sticks With Marriage Equality
By Lucas Grindley and Andrew Harmon
A Republican-led effort to repeal marriage equality in New Hampshire decisively failed today. Lawmakers voted against the repeal, against replacing marriage with civil unions, and against putting marriage rights up to a voter referendum.
Just to ensure the message was clear, Republican representative Seth Cohn, who supports marriage equality, proposed banning marriage between left-handed people. That didn't pass either.
The final vote was 211-116 to kill a bill that would have rescinded marriage equality in the state, and the votes against the repeal included several Republicans, such as Cohn, who broke with their party.
Gov. John Lynch signed marriage equality legislation in 2009 after it narrowly passed through the legislature, and he has promised to veto any effort to repeal the law. It would have needed to pass through both Republican-led chambers before reaching his desk.
But the bill, introduced by state representative David Bates, couldn't muster the votes to pass the House, let alone come anywhere near the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Bates had also sought a referendum but lost that vote 162-188. Polling on the issue showed that a solid majority of New Hampshire residents opposed rolling back marriage rights for gay residents.
