Big boats turn slowly, but once they start…

This is interesting because, while the bill to repeal gay marriage in NH was sponsored by Republicans (as it always seems to be the case), there were 109 GOPers who voted against it, in opposition to the party’s own platform in the state. One wonders where they were a couple of years ago when the laws making same-sex marriage legal were passed along pretty strict party lines. I hope it just means they have noticed that NH has not become a cesspool of sin, and that they feel their marriages have not suddenly become undermined by providing equal rights to all.

One could be cynical and note that since the Ninth Circuit decision on Prop 8’s constitutionality, even the Republicans in the NH House realized that they couldn’t sustain opposition to same-sex marriage once you already had people married in the state: it would create a group of citizens with different (fewer) rights than others, which would be unconstitutional. But it’s hard to not be cynical when so many of the Republicans who voted against same-sex marriage in 2007-2008 are now suddenly saying things like “small government” and “private rights” and “these people are just like you and me”. This wasn’t also true back then?

And yet here in MN, we’re not even where NH was in 2007: here we’re fighting to defeat amendments that would make same-sex marriage unconstitutional, not fighting to pass laws that would make it legal. Progress comes slowly, and unevenly distributed.

Live free or die!

Related articles

• New Hampshire struck down efforts to repeal same-sex marriage (haleybehre.wordpress.com)
• New Hampshire gay marriage repeal fails (reuters.com)
• Gay-Marriage Rollback Fails in NH (thedailybeast.com)