New Hampshire will have Gay "Marriage"

All the signs are there. The stagy Republican boycott/walkout is all about how everything in politics can be a victory, as long as you stay in office.

The Nashua Telegraph - "Rep. William O'Brien, R-Mont Vernon, claimed the group has a meeting with Gov. John Lynch this morning and will urge Lynch to veto the bill (HB 436), which would let gays and lesbians marry, and a related one (HB 310) that fixes mistakes and omissions made in the first.

Rep. David Cote, D-Nashua, chairs the House panel, but O'Brien stressed the GOP members were upset at House Democratic leadership and not at Cote.

'I have a great deal of respect for David Cote and think he's a decent person,' O'Brien said. '. . . The comments he and others made have convinced me this process was beyond his control.'

House Republicans vigorously protested the second same-sex marriage bill that went through the Senate and House on the same day a week ago without a public hearing.

For his part, Cote said he served more than two decades in the House minority before Democrats took control of the House after the 2006 elections.

He couldn't recall such a committee walkout before while adding that any member of the committee can come and go as they wish.

'The idea that the Republican minority did not have an opportunity to participate in this debate is just not true,' Cote said.

Other local representatives who signed protest statements and did not take part in the committee meeting Tuesday included Robert Rowe, of Amherst, Nancy Elliot, of Merrimack, Robert Mead, of Mont Vernon, and Peter Silva, of Nashua.

Seven of the nine Republicans members on the House panel signed the statement.

An eighth, Rep. Anthony DiFruscia, of Windham, supported both bills after the Senate created separate religious and civil marriages for same-sex couples in the compromise. He was not at the Statehouse on Tuesday.

The ninth, Rep. Joseph Hagan, of Chester, voted against both bills and was also absent Tuesday."

One really doesn't need to get too technical about who is where, or who is absent. What is important is the quick language fixes in the bills and the fast tracking of them to Gov. Lynch. Nothing short of a massive demonstration on the capital steps could persuade Gov. Lynch to exercise his veto now.

Republicans will posture about how they tried to save marriage and use the issue as grist for the next election campaign. Democrats who supported it will immediately start distancing themselves from the legislation so as to minimize the damage and gay "marriage" will be a reality in Hew Hampshire. The only state in doubt now in the "northern tier" will be Maine, with it's unpredictable "voter veto" looming on the horizon. New York may chime in with it's own bill soon. I'm sitting right in the middle of all those state capitals.

If you want to keep reliable track of that bill's progress, there is always the New Hampshire Governor's site, and there's the "Law Dork," published by Chris Geidner, a gay lawyer who doesn't seem to get panicky about things. The bill's submission date to the Governor seems to have been changed to the 12th, making it likely that the law will be real law by Monday of next week. The five days required by New Hampshire law expire on Saturday. Or he could just sign it.