Causecast

By NORMA LOVE
Associated Press Writer

The state House on Thursday voted narrowly to make New Hampshire the third state to allow gay couples to marry.

The bill, which passed the House 186-179, next goes to the Senate, where its future is uncertain. Democratic Gov. John Lynch opposes gay marriage but has not said specifically that he would veto it – a position that spokesman Colin Manning reiterated after the vote.

Two years ago, the Legislature approved, and Lynch signed, civil unions for gays, which provide all the rights of marriage, except in name.

Currently, only Connecticut and Massachusetts allow gay couples to marry. The Vermont Senate sent a gay marriage bill to the House this week, but Gov. Jim Douglas says he will veto it if it reaches his desk.

Supporters say it is discriminatory to exclude gays from marriage. Opponents argue marriage is a sacred religious institution that would be cheapened by allowing gays to marry.

Civil unions are not marriage, said Rep. David Pierce, D-Etna. The law should respect and support his life with his partner and their two daughters.

“When my children grow up to be old enough to know what discrimination is, they should not have to learn they were the objects of it,” he said.

He said gays should be allowed to marry, just as women won the right to vote and people of different races the right to marry.

“It is separate but equal all over again. Would you volunteer to ride at the back of the bus? Would you volunteer to give up your marriage license for a civil union license?” said Pierce.

Brookline Democratic Rep. Melanie Levesque, who is black and married to a white man, said her marriage was still a crime in Virginia in the mid-1960s.

“We have had a long history of challenging conventional wisdom – the Earth is flat, people from different continents should not marry, people who are the same should not marry,” she said.

Republicans who voted against the bill said gay marriage defies nature and could harm children.

Continue Reading At The Concord Monitor

Photo: stabarinde