Commentary by Timothy Horrigan; August 3, 2010
CACR 28 was one of several attempts in the New Hampshire legislature to kill marriage equality in New Hampshire. Some rightwing Republicans introduced two repeal measures even before the marriage equality laws took effect on January 1, 2010. These measures failed big-time, by almost a 2-1 margin after about a third of the Republican caucus, moderates and rightwingers alike, crossed over and voted with the Democrats. CACR 28 was the nastier of the two bills which failed. It would have placed the following grossly discriminatory language in the Bill of Rights:
(One of CACR 28's sponsors is a colleague whom I say good things about elsewhere on this web site, Dan Itse, the prime sponsor of the pro-Jeffersonian Democracy resolution HCR 6. All I can say is, CACR 28 was a mistake on his part. He has strong principles, and I respect him for that— but this time I think he went in the wrong direction.)
I used a video by someone who calls himself or herself "impolitical"
on my "New Hampshire Republicans Gone Wild" page, which was one of four
videos of CACR 28's executive session in the House Judiciary
Committee. I decided it might be nice to collect all four on one
page, so you can view the whole session. This session is most
famous for Rep. Nancy J. Ellliott's career-ending (for the time being) meltdown, but that is not its only point of interest.
This bill was "execked" on February 9, 2010. The majority voted to "ITL" the bill (i.e., to kill it.) We killed the bill on Saint Patrick's Day by almost a 2-1 margin.
Part 2 of 4:
Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eklBMwcB9LE
Part 3 of 4:
Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB8eyr0mW0o
Nancy Elliott
(R-Merrimack) became legendary for her outburst in this segment, when
she began gibbering incoherently
about penises being wriggled around in excrement and anal sex being
taught in the Nashua public schools. Rather amusingly, the other
members all politely keep their composure and carry on (for a while) as
if nothing unusual had just happened. And in fact nothing unusual
had happened: this was not the first wildly off-topic and
counterfactual argument to be made during Judiciary Committee
proceedings— and it wasn't the last.
Rep. Elliott followed up her outburst by writing an obscene blurb for the next weekly House Calendar. She agreed to revise it — but the end product, albeit not obscene, is still the stuff of legend:
Rep. Nancy J. Elliott for the Minority of Judiciary: The minority believes that last year the legislature made a mistake passing gay marriage. Legislators ignored the voice of the citizens of New Hampshire to attend to the desires of special interest activists. These activists would have us believe that heterosexual marriage and gay marriage are the same thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. The consummation of gay marriage cannot even be spoken of in polite society and a gay marriage is not valid without it. We have said that this new group of people are married because of these practices. This new marriage has nothing to do with fairness as two people that love each other but do not consummate, cannot be married. To the minority this is confusion and should not have been placed into law. The minority believes that it is time to recognize the error that was made and pass HB 1590 to repeal gay marriage.
Part 4 of 4:
Original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnbH_Sp_zYg
See Also: