New Hampshire House kills Gay Marriage bill. Link inside.

[cecilfirefox]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30851193/

Not sure how this happened, I'm rather surprised.

That being said time is only our side. We will pass it again, with the necessary provisions, and perhaps the wait between may actually help us by postponing a ballot fight.

/sigh :(

Edit: Upon further examining the bill is going to go to something called a Committee of Conference, so it may not be completely dead. I'm really not sure what it means though. O_O

[berni_mccoy]

1. IMO, this bill failed because of purists. The people who objected to this didn't like

the fact that a church could decline to recognize a gay marriage. Well guess what... that's already the case for religions on regular marriage. The Catholic Church does not have to recognize the marriage of previously divorced individuals. If you want to get married in the church, you'll have to prove you got a church-approved annulment. This compromise was no different.

[cecilfirefox]

2. The whole church provisions is silly. It's all ready this way, their just re-stating the law. nt

[MADem]

3. IMO, I don't think it was the church thing at all. I think it was the bit that said

that people who didn't like gay marriage, but who owned, say a restaurant or a gathering venue, could not be allowed to discriminate against people celebrating gay marriages out of a "sincerely held personal or religious belief."

For example, you own Rosa's Catering Hall, and Fred and Joe want to hold their wedding reception there. You don't "approve of" gay marriage, because you are a Roman Catholic, but still you HAVE to give them your list of open dates and rent the hall to them if they select one of your open dates, otherwise you're behaving in a discriminatory manner and you could be both fined and jailed.

THAT, I believe, is the sticking point. The rewrites that the governor's people crafted already gave the the churches an "out." They didn't give the same "out" to businesses.

[cecilfirefox]

4. But if business's are providing public services then they shouldn't have an out. It's public thus

you cannot discriminate.

[MADem]

5. I'm not ENDORSING that. I'm simply saying the clip I saw on the WMUR news

channel had an old guy (Republican) standing up and griping about that, and saying that he felt the bill was being railroaded through without considering the rights of people who objected based on personal views.

I think he regarded it as more of a "No shoes, No shirt, No service" type issue. At any rate, I am not speaking to the validity of the argument, only that the argument was presented.

[nichomachus]

7. Who would want any part of their wedding handled by someone hostile to them?

[MADem]

9. I know. Inhospitable businesses are not the places where one would schedule

one of the most important days of one's life. However, the argument the legislator made is made from the perspective of the business owners, who fear a discrimination lawsuit for a targeted application of the old "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" routine.

I do think that's at least part of the sticking points. The governor's objections were well known, and up until today, it looked like those changes were a real "Ho hum" until the "individual objection" business started getting discussed. Then it went wobbly.

I wasn't paying good attention, I really thought it would just be argued about, like we see happen so often, and then passed.

[bluedawg12]

22. Businesses are not above discrimination laws.

Churches don't have to rent their private church property but church owned public businesses cannot discriminate.

[t0dd]

6. Facebook Comment from NH Freedom to Marry

New Hampshire Freedom to Marry remains confident of final passage of the marriage bill this session. We very narrowly missed today, but the House voted by a wide margin to keep the bill alive and to work out remaining concerns. We expect to see another vote in the next two weeks, and there is very good reason to remain positive. Please continue to contact your House and Senate members. Stay tuned!

[nichomachus]

8. The governor's objection was just a flimsy excuse to get a revote

It was a bullshit reason -- nobody has been threatened with lawsuits for refusing to take part in same-sex weddings.

It's just that the NH legislature is a clusterfuck assembly -- 400 freaking people -- that it's not hard to browbeat a few of them to change their votes.

As soon as I saw the story that the governor would sign it if the legislature made a small change, I knew this was going to happen. This was the whole reason he did it.

[MADem]

10. No, I don't think so. The governor was once opposed to gay marriage.

He's on tape saying so. And he's also on tape saying he's outgrown his objections, and will sign the bill with those very limited changes to protect churches.

The rightwing have been running ads all week on tv and radio of the "Call your legislator" variety, and playing that tape of the governor "flip flopping" on this matter, and complaining that he had a lot of nerve to have an epiphany and change his mind.

I think the "business" argument is what got to a few of the Democrats. They don't like the idea of having to serve ANYONE they don't want to serve--and that probably was what resonated. The way the law is written now, there's no "conscience clause" for private individuals with "faith" issues. Frankly, who'd want to schedule a wedding with those bums? They'd probably spit in the soup.

[nichomachus]

11. I still think it's a phony issue -- just like the Prop H8 arguments in CA

Many people in CA voted for Prop H8 because they had been told their churches could be sued or shut down or their ministers arrested for refusing to perform same-sex marriage.

The bigots know that can't win on the merits, so they have to invent lies to scare people. That's all they do.

I saw somebody in NH says that it was to protect people like church organists from being forced to play at a gay wedding. First of all, any organist worth hiring is probably a gay man to begin with. I know I wouldn't want Old Mrs. Thunderbutt from the Baptist church playing her roller-skating rink music at my wedding.

[MADem]

12. Like I said--I wasn't listening carefully, but I thought everyone agreed on the church stuff.

I thought the sticking point came with that Republican who stood up and said, in essence "What's your goddamn hurry? What about business owners being forced to accomodate this state of affairs against their personal and religious beliefs?" That would include Mrs. Thunderbutt, and the "No Gay Cakes" wedding cake baker, and the bozo who owns that overblown catering venue with the rubber chicken and overboiled veggies.

If anyone else was watching/listening to the hearings, particularly the House debate, they'd probably be able to give us a better idea of what the specific gripe was that stalled the foreward progress of the legislation.

I really thought it was a rubber-stampish thing, particularly when they went to such trouble to turn the thing around so quickly for a revote--though I have to admit I was surprised at how many times I heard that nastyass TV ad.

[nichomachus]

13. They knew they couldn't make the church issue stick

so they invented a new one. Poor Christian Becky at the Piggly Wiggly would be forced to make a batch of potato salad for Adam and Steve's wedding, even though Jesus -- or Carrie Prejean-- told her it was wrong.

It's really a non-issue. These people just keep reaching into the bag for one more lie when the old ones are pulled out from under them.

This is why there is no "finding common ground" with them (sorry, Barack). They just keep moving the goal posts.

[MADem]

14. The church issue IS a valid one. We've got that exemption here in MA, and we've had

equality for five years. No gay couple is going to go to Our Lady of the Beer Tap Cathedral and insist that they be married by Father Nonono. If a couple doesn't meet the church's particular religious standards, they can say no to them and not be sanctioned.

Equality has brought MILLIONS to the Bay State. Businesses have benefitted from it enormously. It's a freaking cash cow, from flowers to food to venues to gifts to hospitality and hotel bookings.

I don't think the church exception thing was the problem. I think it's the "business exception" whine (using a cover of religious or moral or personal belief--but not specifically church-driven) that's the difficulty. Maybe we're talking about the same thing and using differing verbiage to express it.

[Bluebear]

15. "Gov. John Lynch had promised to sign the bill if those changes were made."

He could have signed the bill as it was. It was passed by both Senate and House. Lynch carries the blame for this.

[MADem]

17. He could have, but he campaigned as opposed to equality.

He later said he'd changed his mind. The rightwingers are calling him FLINCH because he did that.

When he put forth the exception for churches, the legislative chambers were indicating that was no big deal. It was during the discussion of the Senate changes in the HOUSE that it started to go wobbly, and that's when the "business clause" got mentioned, I think.

I think the "conscience clause" for businesses is the sticking point, but as I said, I was only listening with half an ear, because I expected it to pass.

If the thing came back to Lynch with "Here's the bill and the churches do not have to play" Lynch would sign it. Unless he's lying...

[nichomachus]

18. As I said -- it was his way of killing it without taking responsibility for killing it

That's a very Christian thing to do.

[nichomachus]

19. I think we agree

Clergy, for the record, are free to refuse to marry anyone they don't want to.

I have a friend who is a rabbi and is one of the few in the country who will do Jewish-nonJewish weddings. Other rabbis won't do them. In fact, he makes quite a bit of money and is flown all over the country marrying Jews and nonJews.

But the bigots kept raising the "churches will be forced" issue, until it was exposed as a lie. Then, when that failed -- or same-sex marriage opponents included language to get around it -- they invented the "businesses will be forced" issue. If we include language on that, they will invent another issue -- mark my word.

The minute I saw that Lynch wanted this to go back to that collection of human plankton in Concord, I knew it was a ploy to get the law overturned.

[Bluebear]

20. Oh well, poor me. Me & my partner have only waited 24 years.

What's another decade, Gov. Lynch?

[nichomachus]

21. We waited 25 years -- now we're waiting to see if the court will obey Ken Starr

and divorce us.

[Creideiki]

24. Dude. Put down the crack pipe

My older brother had to officially convert to Catholicism and promise to raise his children as Catholics in order to get the Catholic church to let him marry my sister-in-law at the church she grew up in.

Clergy and churches have always had the final say in who they marry. Why would it be different because the two people wanting to get married are the same sex?

[Bluebear]

16. It's not dead but thank Gov. Lynch for trying to kill it...-

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/05/nh-house-rejects-curbs-on-gay-marriage.html

The New Hampshire House has rejected Gov. John Lynch's proposed exemptions on gay marriage, forcing state lawmakers to negotiate a compromise.

Lawmakers approved legislation in late March to legalize gay marriage, but Lynch, a Democrat, added language to allow clergy and others affiliated with religious organizations to refuse to marry same-sex couples.

The Senate approved the amended bill earlier today, but the Democratic-controlled House narrowly rejected the measure, 188-186. Lawmakers form both houses must now try to strike a compromise. Lynch has said he will veto any bill that does not contain his exemptions.

Five states have legalized gay marriage.

[bluedawg12]

23. Thanks for grandstanding Gov. Lynch (Dem). n/t