This is what happens when you treat civil and human rights like a political issue:
As same-sex marriage supporters celebrate victories in Washington and Maryland this month, they are keeping a wary eye on New Hampshire, where lawmakers may soon vote to repeal the state’s two-year-old law allowing gay couples to wed.
A repeal bill appears to have a good chance of passing in the State House and Senate, which are both controlled by Republicans. The bigger question is whether they can muster enough votes to overcome a promised veto from Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.
Based on party lines, House and Senate Republicans both have veto-proof majorities. But this is an issue where party allegiance gets muddy.
In a state whose “Live Free or Die” motto figures into many a policy decision, even many opponents of same-sex marriage wish the issue would just disappear. Republican lawmakers with libertarian leanings, a sizable group, seem especially unhappy to be facing a repeal vote, as well as those who maintain that cutting spending should be the legislature’s sole concern. Both groups appear worried about a backlash from their constituents.
You’re allowed to get married. Never mind, no, you aren’t. You’re a citizen of New Hampshire with all the rights and privileges. Never mind, no you are not. BTW- what happens to all the couples who got married under current law if that law is repealed. Then what?
When did conservatives become the reactionary party dead-set upon social upheaval? And when did New Hampshire become the Alabama of New England?
geg6
New Hampshire became wingnut heaven in the NE because of the push for several years to have libertarians and objectivists move there. Once they became a critical mass, anything on the wingnut wish list becomes possible because libertarians and objectivists always, always side with wingnuts regardless of whatever they think their ideals are.
Mike Goetz
Alabama is a cosmopolis compared to much of New Hampshire. I’ve seen worse rednecks there than when I lived in Texas.
muddy
New Hampshire has always been the Alabama of New England. People think that NH is mainly about the “free” on their license plate, and that sounds good, but it’s the “die” portion that gets ’em to the polls.
But hey, liquor at the rest area, woohoo.
jibeaux
I don’t know why they would. Vote against the damn thing, maybe a nice little press conference about how you haven’t noticed that gay marriage in NH has caused the earth to crash into the sun, and be done with it.
Violet
When Prop 8 was passed in CA, didn’t they say that the marriages that had been performed would be legal, but they couldn’t perform new marriages? Maybe they’ll go for a completely unworkable hybrid solution like that.
Jennifer
I tend to think the outcome, should they succeed in passing the repeal, would be similar to what happened in California – courts ruling that you can’t rescind an existing right for one particular group when you’ve shown no compelling societal interest for doing so.
Then again, that ruling was based on the California constitution, not the New Hampshire one, so no way of knowing if a ruling would go the same way. If it didn’t, though, I could see it being advanced to the federal courts and failing there – and perhaps taking DOMA down with it.
That is where we’re headed, after all: at some point, a married same-sex couple is going to move to a state where same-sex marriages are not recognized, they’re going to be denied the rights conferred upon them through their marital status, and they’re going to mount a (successful) lawsuit by pointing out that their new home state’s refusal to recognize their legal marriage is a violation of the full faith & credit clause. At which point, same-sex marriage will be de facto “legal” in all states, although many may still have laws or constitutional amendments on the books with the “one man and one woman” language and may continue to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed within their own states as legal. But by then, it won’t matter – if a gay couple in Texas decides to go to MA to get married, Texas will have to recognize the legality of their marriage when they return home.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Forever. Especially when they’re losing. FDR made them crazy that way, with his New Deal, the rest is histeria.
AKA. nihilist ransom note.
David Hunt
About 3000 BC. In the U.S, about 1787. When did the Republicans become that? I’d guess it was around 1964. In your guts, you know they’re nuts.
chopper
@Jennifer:
exactly. the recent court decision over prop 8 pointed out that once the government recognizes a right among a portion of the population, subsequently taking it away presents a very high bar and the government has to demonstrate a great deal of compelling interest.
the same logic would knock down NHs attempt to end gay marriage here as well.
Biff Longbotham
New Hampshire–about to become the maple cracker state?
Linda Featheringill
@David Hunt:
For you youngsters, I think that last sentence is a play on “In your heart, you know he’s right” which was a slogan of the Goldwater campaign.
Sly
@Violet:
The California Constitution has a presumption against retroactivity (or ex post facto laws), and Prop 8 itself didn’t address the issue, so legally those marriages could not be annulled. However, that didn’t stop supporters of Prop 8 from saying that those marriages should be annulled.
Article I, Section 23 of the New Hampshire constitution prohibits ex post facto laws, so it would seem to be to be pretty clear.
Bulworth
Anonymous At Work
The trend has been there since Nixon, but the real event in this transformation was the ability of tea baggers to run as “independent fiscal conservatives upset with the status quo.” That type can get more panties thrown on stage at a political rally than Van Halen, Springsteen, Gun N Roses, etc, back in their day.
GregB
At one point in the 80’s New Hampshire was the most Republican state in the nation.
It had large majorities in the state House and Senate as well as a GOP Governor and both Congressmen and Senators were GOP.
It was a badge of pride(for racist asswipes) that NH held out for so long in making MLK Day a holiday. We had a state rep. who stated that when he saw Jesse Jackson kiss a young white girl at a campaign stop that “it made him want to throw-up.”
There was also Rep. Mildred Ingram who called gays creatures who, should they choose to donate blood should “donate all of it.”
2010 swept out a large Democratic House, Senate and Executive Councillor majority and also flipped the two Congressional seats and the one Senate seat up for re-election.
We still have former Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen in a Senate seat and she’s more popular than the recently elected GOP-er Senator Kelly Ayotte.
Also, against an enormous headwind, Democratic Governor John Lynch was re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term.(NH has 2 year Governor terms).
There have been three special elections since the GOP tidal wave in 2010 that have all gone to the Democrats. There is another special election tonight, we’ll see where it goes.
The Free State Project has brought in a number of libertarians who have joined the GOP and have been pushing there extreme austerity agenda.
There is a growing backlash against much of the radical agenda but they still have lots of power.
Hal
But, but, but, the people didn’t have their say! You have to put issues of civil and constitutional rights up for popular vote.
In all seriousness, has any major shift in civil and constitutional rights; end of slavery, segregation, women’s suffrage, the civil rights laws, have any of those sea changes involved popular vote?
No, because they wouldn’t have passed. Applying the constitution by popular referendum is stupid, and completely negates having a constitution.
David Hunt
@Linda Featheringill:
Indirectly, yes. Although it was before I was born, I have heard that the Johnson campaign circulated a catchy little meme in response to the Goldwater slogan of “In your heart, you know he’s right.” It was, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”
But yes. I was alluding to Goldwater.
Villago Delenda Est
Think the thing through? Are you high? Rethugs don’t think anything through! Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead! Shoot first, ask questions later! Go with your gut!
Seonachan
I believe it was Andre Dubus (the father) who, several decades ago, wrote that the folks in New Hampshire were Rednecks who just didn’t realize it because it snows there. Dubus was a native Louisianan who lived in NH and just over the border in Mass, so he knew what he was talking about.
middlewest
There are many good answers to this question, but I’ll put in my vote for July 2, 1964.
f space that
@Linda Featheringill:
You’re right. I was 10 years old in ’64. I can remember my parents talking about how crazy Goldwater was. “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” A big difference between 1964 and 2012, Goldwater’s B.S. has been mainstreamed by our liberal media.
Jennifer
@Hal: Which is why the man who wrote the original Bill of Rights, James Madison, warned against “the tyranny of the majority” in the Federalist Papers.
Being such acolytes of the Founding Fathers, you’d think the wingnuts would know this. As with all other fact-based knowledge, however, they choose to disregard it because it gets in the way of doing what they want to do.
Chris
@Hal:
The Constitution itself was never submitted to a popular vote, if memory serves.
Schlemizel
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Not true – conservative used to love social stasis. You black people stay on the plantation, you Jews stay in you neighborhoods, you Catholics stay away from us Christians, you poor people stay in the company housing & shopping at the company store, etc
Bulworth
(snip)
Polls? What friggin polls?
KG
@Sly: Actually, the latest decision from the Ninth could make things much more interesting. They are setting themselves up for a case on the same basic facts/law.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
The wingnuts know one thing. It is better to win than not. Everything else is dust in the wind.
Schlemizel
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
what I find sad is we may have to become like them to beat them. In doing that we lose ourselves and become as awful as they are. Its a lose-lose
Villago Delenda Est
@Jennifer:
According to the wingtards, James Madison had a goatee and was a born-again, God-fearing, bible-believing fundie just like them.
cmorenc
@Jennifer:
The key test will be whether DOMA (the “Defense of Marriage Act”) is constitutionally valid (that federal act passed in 1976 purports to reserve the power to any state to refuse to recognize or honor any benefit from a marriage from another state which is other than that between one man and one woman. The constitutional issue is not limited to an equal protection question, but even aside from that also involves whether congress can validly carve out this sort of limitation to the “full faith and credit” clause. In particular, there is a line of SCOTUS cases recognizing a “public policy” exception, where e.g. a state is not required to honor the law of another state that conflicts with its own statutes. One of the historical uses of this prior to Loving v Virginia was that southern states were not forced to recognize interracial marriages.
Note that in submitting this thumbnail analysis, I’m not thereby agreeing with DOMA or the validity of extending the “public policy” line of cases to gay marriage status. Rather, I’m explaining why the constitutional issues involved aren’t solely ones regarding “equal protection”, and why you shouldn’t presume that “full faith and credit” is a slam-dunk reason why states with anti-gay marriage state constitutional provisions will necessarily be forced to recognize marriages formed in Massachusetts. Not until the current SCOTUS rules on the full faith and credit issue should you presume this will be so.
ericblair
@Hal:
Well, unless you get a result that you don’t like, and then it’s Totally Not Activist Judge time.
When you’re up against the Fascist Soshulist Gay Muslim Atheist conspiracy, any port in a storm, yanno.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Schlemizel:
Which goes to say, never say forever. My bad. I think FDR got it started with his soshulist agenda, then the Cold War Red Menace, Birchers, McCarthy. Goldwater personified and mainline republicanized it all, to the surreal GOP we have today. The CRA cleansed the dem party of most virulent racism, and was the cherry on top for the mad rush to Peak Wingnut (if it in fact exists in un nature)
GregB
One error, the Senate seat won by GOP-er Kelly Ayotte in 2010 was held by GOP-er Judd Gregg so that stayed in GOP hands.
Chris
@Schlemizel:
So the answer to “when did Republicans become reactionaries bent on social upheaval” would be “when society moved past them to the point that they preferred to see it destroyed than to see it continue.”
Gilded Age Republicans, and the party backbone all the way through Roosevelt/Truman, were actual conservatives, not reactionary psychos – they wanted to preserve the social order, not bring it crashing down around them. That changed circa the 1950s.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Has anyone from the wingnut side tried arguing that allowing gay marriage is a violation of the religious liberty of Catholics and Southern Baptists yet?
I’m probably harping on this a lot, but goddam. I just never thought I’d see the day that the Republican party more or less came out in favor of turning our government over to Catholic bishops. I’m still in shock.
beergoggles
@Jennifer: Actually I have a better suggestion for a case – Two same gender people marry in a state where it is legal. One of them then moves to a state where that is not recognized and marries an opposite gender person.
DOMA as it stands prevents the federal government from prosecuting them for polygamy and I would LMFAO at the wingnut freakout over their precious DOMA legalizing polygamy.
Scott
@Jennifer:
Being such acolytes of the Founding Fathers, you’d think the wingnuts would know this.
Much like fundamentalists who’ve never read the Bible, your average “Constitutionalist” has never actually read the Constitution. If they did, they’d be horrified.
Chris
@Scott:
Apparently, the fundiegelical freak brigade had a happy moment last week: they turned the tables on Richard Dawkins, who likes to say that most fundies couldn’t name the first chapter in the New Testament: a fundie in turn asked him if he could cite the full title of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” And he couldn’t. AH HA! They don’t know their own Bible either!
And yes, it’s truly painful to watch people who’re really that fucking stupid twist themselves into pretzels with stuff like this.
Phoenix_rising
@cmorenc:
And this, boys and girls, is why Mary Bonuato will eventually be on a postage stamp.
GLAD, serving New England (which includes the Peoples’ Republics of VT and MA, as well as the backwoods of ME and NH where conjugal contact with moose is heard-of), has been working toward a case that will resolve this problem for everyone since 1996.
Jennifer
@cmorenc: Well of course it will have to go to the Supreme Court. But I can’t see it being upheld without some serious pretzel logic.
I could even see it wandering a bit further afield with interstate commerce being invoked. Plaintiff is offered a job in a state that doesn’t recognize his marriage, which is legal in the state where he now resides, and the state where the job is located is creating a barrier to free flow of commerce. That one’s a bit of a stretch I’ll admit, but I could see someone trying to argue it. I still think the full faith and credit issue is the weakest link, weaker even than equal protection, for the simple reason that about 20% of the states now recognize same-sex marriage. At the time DOMA was passed, none did.
PeakVT
In a state whose “Live Free or Die” motto figures into many a policy decision
and fucks up the outcome.
Yutsano
@Phoenix_rising: If we’re talking postage stamps, can we get these guys on one too?
Note the official Marine reaction. The world has already shifted dudes. Catch up with the times already.
Tom Levenson
when did New Hampshire become the Alabama of New England
Jay C
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Not that I’ve read of yet: but I wouldn’t take the sucker bet that we won’t be hearing this “argument” (replete with hyperventilating hysteria) pretty soon.
It’s not quite that simple, IMO: I think the Bishops are basically just the front men/stalking horse here to advance the “religious liberty” argument to give any well-organized religious group, Protestant or Catholic, an effective veto power over any and all legislation or regulation that doesn’t meet their “moral” standards.
And I don’t think you need a lot of imagination to figure out what sorts of rules they have in mind…
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@GregB:
And yet (surprise, surprise) NH is one of those states that wouldn’t be habitable without Federal Highway Funds and other subsidies.
I’m sure the parasites in our bloodstreams and intestines would fancy themselves as ‘sovereign and independent’, too (if they had brains capable of thought, that is).
Angry Egilsson
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
My grandfather was a New Hampshire republican through and through, and to his dying day he hated FDR. I remember just being baffled about it.
It’s always had a strong, right wing, lbertarian element – and has been dominated by voices like the Manchester Union Leader. It’s the legacy of domination by the paper companies.
People don’t understand old-school New England really.
Haiwei
Short answer to the question: 1788.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire
stratplayer
Any time I hear a Republican utter the word “liberty” I reach for my revolver. We need to reclaim that grossly abused word from the right and we need to do it now. Republicans need to be repeatedly called out as the authoritarians they are and have always been, notwithstanding their bogus libertarian rhetoric.
truthdogg
As a former Alabaman, I must take exception.
We always called New Hampshire the “Tupelo, Mississippi” of New England.
TOP123
@Angry Egilsson:
Exactly.
I love NE, and the Upper Valley is one of my favourite places in the world, but I also sadly remember the ‘Take Back Vermont’ period.
FlatlandersPeople in other parts of the country think of Vermont as Ben & Jerry’s, foliage, and Groovy UVies, but there’s a little more complexity to the picture.Though NH (and the Union Leader!) have long been the ground zero of the Crazy.
Which is to say, I laughed, hard, at @Tom Levenson: this.
gex
When? When they decided they were the straight white Christian man party. Or, at least since the 60’s. It took a long time for the conservatism to reveal itself as reactionary only because things hewed closer to their utopian vision of white male domination for a long time.
gex
Frankly, I think we should just go with religion gets to define marriage. I know there is at least one Christian denomination that endorses SSM. They would have a very strong case that their freedom of religion is being supressed because they can’t marry people the way other preferred religions can.
These fuckers don’t give two shits about rule of law. They don’t want a rule applied equally, and you can see that by this example. They want the rule to be as convoluted as it can be so the rule of law is what they say it is.
@beergoggles: My girlfriend and I have discussed going and collecting a SSM from every state. I know that since some states acknowledge SSMs from out of state, we’d be polygamists some places, married in others, and not at all married in yet others.
Persia
@TOP123: Yep. Though I have to confess, I don’t think the average New Hampshire resident had any idea the amount of crazy they would unleash when they clicked (R) in 2010. Since then they’ve cut back the tobacco tax (and lost a ton of revenue), flailed around on gay marriage, whined about birth certificates and generally covered themselves in anything but glory.
I’m hoping they’ll have a backlash this year when the residents of the state realize these people did fuck all, but I’m not super optimistic on that point.
trollhattan
@Anonymous At Work:
Why are they wussing out and not demanding only uncivil unions be allowed? Sissy Marys.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
what i have found with new england, is that a certain detached liberalism is the mainstream. but, there are rips and eddys of powerful conservatism throughout, the kind of conservatism that is very pouty, angry, and full-mag-one-in-the-chamber fully loaded and usually half-cocked. it kind of doesn’t surprise me that new hampshire is sort of a spirit guide to how the conservatives see themselves right now.
i have to wonder, if there is any conventional rationale at all behind this, how they make a case for overturning a law. i mean, usually you have to come up with some sort of reason. predicting anarchy, soul swallowing hell demons and whatever is fine, before you pass marriage equality, but how can they, in even what passes for rational right wing terms, say that marriage equality has failed?
show me the stigmata.
Persia
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: NOM is running ads in the state claiming out of state money (OH THE IRONY) shoved gay marriage down the throat of well-meaning New Hampshirites, and a ‘compromise’ of getting rid of gay marriage and replacing it with separate but equal civil unions is the best solution. A New Hampshire solution.
gex
Likewise, straight people need to watch out how they do this. If we can negate marriages or marriage by popular vote, the libertarians who demand government get out of marriage (you know, single pasty boys in their parents’ basement who are far from marriage material) will do so. And all these straight people will be left with religious marriages and not civil marriages after all. They’ll get to see that there IS in fact a difference between the two.
TOP123
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: I think a lot of what drove ‘Take Back Vermont’, for example, was less specific reasoned opposition to gay rights and more anger at the perceived ‘loss’ of the public sphere to more recently arrived residents from places like New York and Boston, and the feeling that it was these ‘elites’ and outsiders who were driving the change.
Classic RW material, actually.
ETA What Persia @56 said.
redshirt
NH is a great example of how dogma influences people. There’s no difference in the “people” of NH, VT, or ME. They all come from the same general backgrounds, all share a mostly rural life with very small urban areas, and all are relatively poor on the whole.
Yet for as long as I have lived this “WE DO THINGS THE NH WAY” vibe has been dominant. ME and VT have no such vibe.
And by vibe I mean propaganda. State based. And people buy into it. So the same redneck living in ME or VT with the exact same conditions as the Redneck in NH will have very different outlooks on the world, their state, and themselves.
Too obvious?
ant
will republicans allow them to get a divorce ya think?
Will deadbeat gay dads totally get out of having to pay child support?
Who gets the house?
What did interracial couples do back in the day if one of em just packed everything up, and moved to Virgina cause they weren’t happy, and needed their vagina inspected by a small-government official?
Someone should ask Clarence Thomas.
Patricia Kayden
“A repeal bill appears to have a good chance of passing in the State House and Senate, which are both controlled by Republicans.”
That’s what happens when a certain group is in full control. Hopefully, the electorate will notice and not vote them back in. Not worried about that here in MD.
TOP123
@Linda Featheringill: The NH/Alabama parallel goes back a ways…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1964prescountymap2.PNG
In New Hampshire’s defence, that big red splotch (Carroll C’ty) on an otherwise stainlessly blue stretch from New Jersey up to the tip of Maine IS one of the most beautiful parts of the country. And they voted for Obama in 2008.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@Persia: @TOP123:
naturally the money flowing to overturn it, is coming from out of state. i mean, how else would the conservatives come up with the idea if it weren’t doublly true about what they are doing.
republicans basically believe that people get tired of hearing liberals complain, so if they make us complain about everything, the long game is people will tune it out when it gets important.
toujoursdan
@Chris:
A fundie? It was Giles Fraser, the openly gay Church of England Canon (priest) who quit his job in support of the Occupy London movement.
@gex: There are several Christian denominations which support gay marriage: United Church of Christ, ELCA Lutherans. Episcopal Church and the Quakers. Gene Robinson is the openly gay Episcopal Bishop there who often appears on the Daily Show.
Finally, by all accounts, the governor of NH is going to veto any repeal measure and the legislature probably doesn’t have the votes to override the veto.
mrhardy
As a former New Hampshire resident, I can tell you that part of the reason I fled/escaped/moved to the lefty communist stronghold that is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the increasing Alabama-ization of my former home.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
What does that even mean? Does Dawkins mean the first book of the New Testament? There aren’t chapter titles in the Bible, so the answer is always “Chapter 1.”
Sorry, but that’s the stupidest “gotcha” question ever. Is Dawkins aware that not all Christian Bibles are alike? Catholic Bibles have chapters in them that the King James Version doesn’t.
Ken
“Doctor, it hurts when I move my elbow like this.”
“Don’t move your elbow like that.”
(That is, they could just drop the issue and it would disappear.)
IdiotSavant
New Hampshire, the South of the North.