(Bumped. - promoted by Dean Barker)
It wasn't easy, but New Hampshire became the most recent state to adopt marriage equality last Spring. There are just five states -- New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Iowa -- where our gay and lesbian citizens have the right to be married, just like everyone else. At one point there were seven, but as disgusting as it is once the right was extended, discrimination was reestablished in California and Maine.
House Bill 436 was approved last year in large part to the advocacy and work of those reading BlueHampshire.com, who went out of their way to contact Legislators on each of the crucial votes. All those votes were close, and E-Mails and telephone calls had an impact.
We have won to this point by remaining positive. We have won by telling our stories and showing our faces. We have won by asking people the simple question: Just why should we discriminate?
Some people would like to revisit discrimination in New Hampshire. Much time has been spent in recent months in the effort to turn back the clock here to the discrimination of yesteryear. But The New Hampshire Way is not to take rights away from our neighbors and friends, and I expect that any such effort will fail -- either now in Concord, or at the March Town Meetings, or next November, or next January. But our own efforts to defend our rights have to continue.
Last month, the House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on two bills, which are up for vote by the full House on Wednesday. House Bill 1590, "AN ACT repealing same sex marriage," and CACR 28 (a Constitutional Amendment) "Providing that the state shall only recognize the union of one man and one woman as marriage," will be voted on, likely in the late morning or early afternoon. The Judiciary Committee has recommended on identical 12-8 votes on both bills that they be killed dead.
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| The votes on Wednesday will again be close. Our opponents want to beat us. I think we'll win, and we have done many things during the past three months to maintain our victory. But we need the help of BlueHampshire.com readers.
PLEASE contact your Legislators -- and re-contact those who you talked with last Spring. Thank them for voting to provide equality last year, and ask that they remain firm this Wednesday.
Since January 1, 2010, at 12:01 AM when HB 436 became law, about 300 of our fellow neighbors have been able to be married. They have joined together to share their caring and love for one another. That's something for all of us to celebrate. Let's continue to show that New Hampshire is a wonderful place to call "home" for all of us. |
