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Let's put this non-binding nonsense into context and be honest about what it meant for non-SB2 towns. It meant the deliberation of a tiny fraction of a town's voting population, the median age of which is, let's be frank, likely well above the town's average.
And then add to that the fact that these petition articles are among the last items of business. At my town meeting, we got to the anti-marriage article, iirc, around 11:30pm, over four hours into the meeting. Probably a solid third or more of the good folks who began the meeting weren't even around at that point. And those are the ones who had (or didn't need) someone to watch young kids, so, tough luck for full representation from younger families.
And then add to that the anti-marriage strategy of downplaying their discriminatory intent, and instead the focus on the process of allowing Direct Democracy!, or whatever. The mom, pop, and apple pie boilerplate wording of the bill is very careful to conceal its purpose. Ask yourselves: would the faux-noble Let New Hampshire Vote mission exist if marriage equality hadn't passed into law? So if there's no one around close to midnight who can explain what's going on and be willing to speak out about it, your town might be plum out of luck when this thing came to a vote.
My wonderful town of Andover, in the end, and despite all these obstacles, solidly voted down the article. One person spoke in favor of it (my state rep, Jenn Coffey), and four spoke against (disclosure: I was one of the four).
As I was on my way out the door, a teenager I've never seen before and don't know came up to me to thank me for what I had said, and to explain how upset she was over that article.
This filled my heart with joy, and not because of her thanking me. Because this young person, not even old enough to vote, in a room surrounded by people mostly older than I am (and I am not young), sat through four hours of selectman explanations, cemetery funding figures, fights over what culverts to fix or ignore, whether our police should get a lousy raise, a lousier raise, or no raise, and trash compacter debates, just to see if her town would go the way of fairness and tolerance, or not.
Or, to put it another way, in the form of a poll from last year:
among those 18 to 34 years old, 58 percent said same-sex marriages should be legal. That number drops to 42 percent among respondents aged 35 to 49, and to 41 percent for those aged 50 to 64. Only 24 percent of Americans 65 and older support recognizing same-sex marriages, according to the poll.
The future is bright, friends, and its path is paved with tolerance and freedom.
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