commentary by Timothy Horrigan; February 17, 2009; April 13, 2009 & April 23, 2009 & April 27, 2009
I was in favor of HB436 (sponsored by my friend and committee-mate Jim Splaine) which would grant full marriage equality, and against HB147 and HB453 which would roll back the recent gains. The hearing drew a large crowd. The bills probably will not reach the floor of the full house until March 4, 2009. [March 19, 2009 update: they will be voted on sometime between Tuesday March 24 and Thursday March 26" along with several related bills.]
This is the written testimony which I prepared beforehand which was significantly longer than what I actually said while sitting before the committee. I did submit these three statements to the committee, however.
See Also:
[August 3, 2010] I should have updated this page over a year ago.
To make a (very) long story short, the Senate passed a package of
marriage equality bills on June 3, 2009. Normally, the Governor
has all summer to sign (or veto) legislation, but this time we (by "we"
I mean the House Democratic caucus) made him sign it that very day, less than two hours after the Senate's vote.
Governor Lynch didn't look too happy, but he did sign our bills and he did give a gracious speech. I was one of several dozen somewhat rowdy state reps who surrounded him to make sure he signed our legislation.
See:
[April 27, 2009] The honorable Senate held
a committee hearing on HB 436 on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. A
week later, on April 23, 2009, the Judiciary Committee held the
executive session: the chair, Sen. Deborah Reynolds, crossed party
lines to vote against it. (The committee had a bad day: they voted to
kill a gender-rights bill, and they turned a bill to overturn the
death penalty into a wimpy bill establishing a commission.) It will
go to the full Senate on April 29, 2009 and appears to be doomed: all
10 Republicans are against it, including the newly-elected Jeb
Bradley, appear to be against it, although none of them are
making a big fuss about it. At least two Democrats— Reynolds and
Lou d'Alessandro— have come out against it, and several others have
refused to comment. Unless a Republican breaks ranks, or unless
Reynolds or d'Alessandro has a change of heart, the final vote in
favor of HB436 would be somewhere between 8-16 and 12-12. But, if you
live in New Hampshire please contact your State Senator anyway. Here
is my written testimony from the April 15 hearing. My oral testimony
was much shorter, although I did work The
Flintstones
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Written Testimony HB436 (For Senate Judiciary Committee) Rep. Timothy Horrigan (D-Durham) April 15, 2009 |
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I strongly support HB436, the so-called gay marriage bill— which somewhat surprisingly actually IS a gay marriage bill. I support it because I think that the government should stay out of the marriage business as much as possible and because I think that same-sex couples deserve the same rights which heterosexual couples take for granted.
I believe that any two adults who want to be married to each other should be married. The state can't stay out of the marriage business altogether, but it should make the restrictions on who can marry who as minimal as possible. All couples, regardless of their genders, deserve the same rights and the same protections. The religious and moral questions which the opponents of this and similar bills make so much fuss about are none of the government's business. In any case, many religious groups do support gay marriage. Some, as the Judiciary Committee will be repeatedly reminded today, oppose it. And some don't support marriage at all. We had quite a lively debate in the House last month, led off by the member from Bedford, Rep. Cebrowski's "peanut butter and jelly" speech. He explained that gay couples cannot be married because peanut butter and peanut butter can never make peanut butter and jelly. Moreover, jelly and jelly can also never make peanut butter and jelly. Only peanut butter and jelly can make peanut butter and jelly: I have to admit this is logic which on the face of it is hard to argue with. I have to admit that I often enjoy a nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich myself— but peanut butter without jelly makes those tasty peanut butter crackers they sell in the vending machines in the basement of the Legislative Office Building, and jelly without peanut butter makes toast with jam, which is a nice breakfast time treat. I enjoy all three of those foodstuffs.
Cebrowski also explained that sodium and sodium can never make salt, which is Sodium Chloride (NaCl), nor can chlorine and chlorine make salt. Once again, this is logic which is hard to argue with on the face of it. However, sodium without chlorine does make Sodium Hydroxide, which is the active ingredient in drain cleaner, and chlorine without sodium makes chlorine bleach.
In any case, we are not talking about salt, or mixed metaphors, or peanut butter, or jelly, or even household cleaners. We are talking about human beings. We are talking about perfectly ordinary and healthy human beings, human beings who sometimes fall in love. We are talking about couples whose lives together are no different from those of straight couples, aside from the fact that they are both of the same gender.
You will hear lot of talk today about children and how they have been raised since time immemorial. Gay couples in fact often do have children, but marriage is about many things other than children. Forbidding gay people to marry because they can't have children makes as much sense as forbidding post-menopausal women from marrying— in other words it makes no sense at all. It makes less than zero sense, because, as I just said, gay couples can and do have children.
In any case, since time immemorial, children have been growing up in all sorts of families, and since time immemorial gay people have always been part of those families. And, from time immemorial, gay women have been pairing off with gay women and gay men with gay men— just like straight women and straight men have been doing.
Actually, the typical nuclear family of one man and one woman and 2.3 children and a suburban house is something which hasn't existed since time immemorial: that concept only dates back to the middle of the last century. Before then, and in fact even now in most cultures, the typical family is an extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and all sorts of other adults— including gay lovers— helping to raise children and do everything else a family does. The "nuclear family" is actually just one of many terms we are hearing today which have not been around since time immemorial: "homosexuality" for example has only been around since the mid-19th century, genes since the l860s, XX and XY chromosomes since the early 20th century, DNA since the 1950s, etc., etc.
I will close by quoting from HB436's ITL blurb in the House Calendar, by the member from Merrimack, Rep. Elliott, stated:
Supporters of an inexpedient motion see confusion in our neighbor to the south, Massachusetts. They discourage young girls from imagining that they will marry a handsome prince. To do so would be "heterosexist" a moral equivalent to racist. We are of the opinion that girls are instead asked in school if they would like to marry a boy or a girl when they grow up. I happen to know a little bit about family life in our neighbor to the south because my sister is raising a family there, a typical nuclear family. Her marriage, to a man, is not weakened by the presence of gay couples in her town. I have no idea who my 9-year-old nephews will marry when they grow up: they are more preoccupied with baseball and soccer than marriage. But if either of them turns out to be gay, he should be able to marry his handsome prince. |
[April 13, 2009] The bills made it to the floor of the house the
last week in March. The two bills which would have eliminated Civil
Unions— HB147
and HB453
passed by comfortable bipartisan margins on March 25. The Gay
Marriage bill— HB436
— had a much harder time passing. The chairman, David Cote and
one other Democrat crossed over and voted with the Republicans in the
Judiciary Committee to create a 10-10 tie. Normally, this meant that
there would have been no blurbs for or against the bill in the
calendar, but after some parliamentary maneuvering, the blurbs got
published. The Republican blurb was written by that noted legal
scholar, Nancy Elliott of Merrimack. No, in real life, she is not a
professor of law, in spite of her erudition. No, she has never even
served as a judge. She is a self-taught scholar whose day job is as
an office manager for a family-owned manufacturing firm, and she did
not even go to college— let alone law school.
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Statement in support of Ought to Pass with Amendment: This bill would extend equal access to the civil benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. The bill provides for the recognition of out-of-state civil unions and same-sex marriages. It provides a mechanism by which the parties to a civil union may enter into a marriage. The bill affirms that no officiant is obliged to preside at any civil or religious ceremony in violation of their free exercise of religion. A floor amendment which will be in seat pockets and is favored by the proponents removes an unnecessary change to the solemnization statute, and also removes a paragraph which might have permitted such practices as plural and child marriages. Proponents of the bill believe that passage of this bill is a matter of fundamental fairness which can only serve to strengthen our familial and societal ties.
Rep. Lucy Weber |
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Statement in support of Inexpedient to Legislate: We must exercise caution in this uncharted social area. When adult desires for acceptance conflict with the needs of children, it is clear that children should win. Social science demonstrates time and again, that children who are raised by their married biological parents do better, live happier lives, and contribute more to society than the children of any other family configuration. As a result, we must consider the needs of children when changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex. The vast majority of our citizens do not want this change. Marriage amendments have passed in 30 states. Marriage stands for something important and bigger than ourselves. It is the correct way to bear and create the next generation and train them to replace us. It is arrogant to assume that history's great minds, religious leaders, churches and the populace as a whole were wrong, while the supporters of this bill have a new moral enlightenment never seen before. Not one religion or philosophical teaching, the world over, from the beginning of time, ever defined marriage as being between members of the same sex. Supporters of an inexpedient motion see confusion in our neighbor to the south, Massachusetts. They discourage young girls from imagining that they will marry a handsome prince. To do so would be "heterosexist" a moral equivalent to racist. We are of the opinion that girls are instead asked in school if they would like to marry a boy or a girl when they grow up. This is extremely confusing to a child. Children are encouraged to experiment in this area. Books are presented to kindergarteners about two daddies or two mommies. Children who think they may be same-sex are removed from families that do not support their new lifestyles, and adoption agencies are forced to place children in same-sex homes even when the biological parents object. We've heard of two men who claimed to have adopted a baby girl. We feel that this is an unwise practice and certainly should not become the norm. We must never change the definition of marriage. The price to our society and successive generations will be enormous.
Rep. Nancy Elliott |
It took five roll call votes to get the bill passed. We ended up in a situation where the "Ought to Pass with Amendment" report had failed and the "Inexpedient to Legislate" motion had also failed. Theoretically, we could have been forced to sit there in our seats until our terms ran out in December 2010. Happily, the majority caucus leadership got a conservative Democrat who voted against "OTP/A" to reconsider that motion, and after much wrangling, our side got a majority when the House re-voted for the "OTP/A". A few members who voted against the bill initially had to be convinced to leave the floor for that last vote. We won ugly, but we won.
The bill will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, April 15 (Tax Day) at 9a.m. The hearing will be held in Representatives Hall at the New Hampshire State House.
I support HB436, for the simple reason that any two adults who want to be married to each other should be married. The state can't stay out of the marriage business altogether, but it should make the restrictions on who can marry who as minimal as possible. All couples, regardless of their genders, deserve the same rights and the same protections.
The religious and moral questions which the opponents of this and similar bills make so much fuss about are none of the government's business. In any case, many religious groups do support gay marriage. Some, as the Judiciary Committee will be repeatedly reminded today, oppose it. And some don't support marriage at all.
Like it or not, there are many couples in New Hampshire who are of the same gender. They're queer, they're here and really they are no different from heterosexual couples. In their own hearts, and for all practical purposes the two human beings in a gay partnership are as married as any other couple. It harms no one— and helps the gay couples and their families a lot— if their marriages are legally recognized just like heterosexual marriages.
I speak as a divorced heterosexual male— or technically I was not divorced because my partner and I never formally got married. Our religious beliefs were part of the reason we didn't formally get married: we were associated with a religious group which did not believe in religious marriage. (That's only part of the reason: we were not that deeply involved and the group in fact did allow members to get legally married in civil ceremonies.) Some may say this indicates HB436 is unnecessary because we made a life together without a marriage certificate. But in our case, we did have the option of getting legally married, and I am glad we did have that option. I think all couples deserve that option.
February 5, 2009
I oppose HB147 for two reasons.
#1. It violates the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.
This bill could of course be amended to cover only "gay marriages" contracted outside the USA, but I favor ITLing it and killing it altogether. Which brings me to my second reason for opposing HB147.
#2. The state should stay out of the marriage business as much as possible, and when it does get involved it should deal with it simply as a relationship between one person and one other person. The religious and moral questions which the proponents of this and similar bills makes so much fuss about are none of the government's business.
There are some religious groups which oppose gay marriage, but there are others which don't. (There are even some which oppose marriage altogether.) I think the state should permit any two people who want to get married to each other to be married to each other. I think they should treat all couples fairly.
I speak as a divorced heterosexual male— or technically I was not divorced because my partner and I never formally got married. Our religious beliefs were part of the reason we didn't formally get married: we were associated with a religious group which did not believe in religious marriage. (That's only part of the reason: we were not that deeply involved and the group in fact did allow members to get legally married in civil ceremonies.) On one level, this may indicate HB147 is unnecessary because we chose to make a life together without a marriage certificate. But on a deeper level, this shows how futile HB147 is: people who want to be together will be together, and all a law like HB147 does is to prevent them from having all the rights they are entitled to as law-abiding citizens.
February 5, 2009
I oppose HB453. The state should stay out of the marriage business as much as possible, and when it does get involved it should deal with it simply as a relationship between one person and one other person. The religious and moral questions which the proponents of this and similar bills make so much fuss about are none of the government's business.
There are some religious groups which oppose gay marriage, but there are others which don't. (There are even some which oppose marriage altogether.) I think the state should permit any two people who want to get married to each other to be married to each other. I think they should treat all couples fairly.
Also the state should be encouraging all couples to stay together. Love is a very hard thing to find. The state has no business telling anyone they should give up love when they find it.
You hear a lot of talk about families and children: gay couples have families and some even have children. Those families and those children love their gay sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. just as much as their heterosexual ones. You noticed by the way that I didn't stop after "mothers": that is because a family is more than just one man, one woman and 2.3 children. Families come in all sorts of configurations.
This bill includes amendments to RSAs concerning cemeteries and the licensing of substance-abuse counselors. That indicates that marriage is not just some mystical state one woman and one man enter into by having the woman buy an expensive white dress and having the man rent a tuxedo while her father pays for a ridiculously expensive party. Marriage is a relationship which two people enter into when they choose to live together for (hopefully) the rest of their lives. It has its mystical side, but it also has its material side. Like it or not, there are many couples in New Hampshire who are of the same gender. In their own hearts, and for all practical purposes they are as married as any other couple. It harms no one— and helps the gay couples and their families a lot— if their marriages are legally recognized just like heterosexual marriages.
By the way, speaking of ridiculously expensive parties, gay people enjoy weddings as much as us straights do. Legalizing gay marriage will bring in millions of dollars into our New Hampshire tourist economy since, as the most beautiful state in the union, we have more wedding venues per square mile than any other state.
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