New Hampshire votes to take away Gay Marriage

[DKStories]

File this article under why voting Republican is voting to take away gay rights:

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/10/26/NH_House_Panel_Advances_Gay_Marriage_Repeal/

No matter what platform they run on, once elected modern-day Republicans first actions are to wage war on unions, women, gays and immigrants. In states with new Republican majorities from 2010, we have seen legislation that strikes at unions, a woman's right to choose, immigrants of all types, and of course gays. Now New Hampshire gets in the act to take away marriage after Democratic majorities passed the law in prior years.

Fortunately this state still has a Democrat Governor who has promised to veto the bill once it gets to his desk. Even more fortunately, the Republicans don't have enough of a majority to override that veto. Until the Republicans control all three parts of that state's government, gay people should be allowed to continue getting married.

Let this be a reminder that any right can be taken away if you give your opponents enough power. Today it's marriage, but give them a strong enough majority and they'll start taking othe rights away. In other states where they are stronger they have already started taking away domestic partnerships, discrimination protections, etc. They won't stop at marriage, they'll keep on pushing until they have the clout to start putting us in jail again.

[Steven Adamson]

Don't sweat it.

Republicans, Democrats, Whatever. Doesn't matter who's in charge, really. The pace of change is mostly dependent on the attitudes of the people, not the other way around. And the attitudes of the people is getting much better, especially the younger people. Gay marriage is close to 50% support nationwide, but that number is mcuh much higher among young people.

We got NY! We'll get CA soon (for good this time) We haven't actually lost New Hampshire.

Overall and longterm, I'm happy with the direction of things on this issue.

[The Pecman]

There hasn't been a vote yet, so the headline on this thread is premature -- for the moment.

[DKStories]

Don't sweat it.

Republicans, Democrats, Whatever. Doesn't matter who's in charge, really. The pace of change is mostly dependent on the attitudes of the people, not the other way around. And the attitudes of the people is getting much better, especially the younger people. Gay marriage is close to 50% support nationwide, but that number is mcuh much higher among young people.

We got NY! We'll get CA soon (for good this time) We haven't actually lost New Hampshire.

Overall and longterm, I'm happy with the direction of things on this issue.

Actually - California's Democratic legislature voted TWICE to legalize same-sex marriage. It passed both houses of our state government only to be vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Almost every Democrat voted for the bill while every Republican voted against it. The Republican Governor of that time vetoed the bill. Tell me again how it doesn't matter if there are Republican or Democrats in office?

Proposition 8 came about after the California Supreme Court ruled for gay marriage in a court case. 52% of California's population voted for the proposition. The court case that we won is now stalled at the appeals court level. Winning the court case at the 9th Circuit level is hopeful, but not guaranteed. Winning it on appeal to the US Supreme Court is a crap shoot at best. The case will hinge on keeping all four of the left leaning justices (we only have two classic liberals still on the bench), and getting Kennedy to side with the left side. Since their ruling would affect the entire United States, not just California, most court watchers are pessimistic at best that the case will win.

The other option to get rid of Proposition 8 is to repeal it at the ballot box. The state's largest LGBT group has already declared that it will not push for a Prop 8 repeal in 2012 - the year that it is most likely to pass. With the state's Democratic Governor having signed a law that now puts ballot issues on the November ballot, it could be on the ballot with Barack Obama again - and I well remember the phone call I got on election day 2008 where Prop 8 supporters used a recording of him at a debate to urge me to vote Yes on 8te. Even with him on the ballot, trying to overtun 8 at the ballot box is a very remote possibility, and without a statewide organization or a millionaire doling out millions to fund the campaign it won't ever be on the ballot.

Now, please tell me how we're going to get marriage in California soon? (and boy do I want to be wrong on this one). Young people may be more pro-gay, but they don't vote and the only people that matter in regards to changing laws are those that actually show up at the ballot box. Before Prop 8 went to the ballot box, a majority of Californians supported gay marriage, but those people didn't bother to vote in the same numbers as those who opposed gay marriage, and so Prop 8 won.

Sorry, I not only live in California, I work in politics in California. The only reason NY still has gay marriage is that the state laws do not allow voter-sponsored ballot measures. In that state, and in Massachussetts and a number of other states with same-sex marriage, ballot measures have to be put up by the legislature as a referendum. That has protected those state laws, along with a solid Democratic majority in the same legislatures, keeping it off of the ballot.

Gay and lesbian victories are tenuous at best. They can easily be overturned, erased from history. Look at history and you'll see all it takes is a conservative sweep to power to undo any gains by the LGBT community. How bad it can get depends on how conservative a group gets elected. So, yes, elections do matter, and voting for people that will vote against our community damages us, period, no matter what other issues they ran on during the election.

Pecman, a vote has taken place - and while most people will say it's just a committee vote, what any decent politico will tell you is that in most cases a committee vote WILL reflect on the final vote. When the vote is extremely close, or it has weak party members waffling, you have a chance of flipping votes on the house floor, but this is not one of those cases. The committee vote was a strong, pure party line vote. In fact, the Democratic, pro-gay side might lose one or two votes because of what happened with the Anthony Wiener seat in New York (in case I have to explain that - Democrat Anthony Wiener resigned after sending pics of his penis around and their going public - his seat was Democratic for decades with a solid Democratic majority and a Republican won that seat in the special to replace Wiener. The National Organization for Marriage - now headed by an architect of the Prop 8 battle - contributed heavily to that race and they are going to Democrats in tight districts and vowing to use their millions to run them out of office unless they vote to overturn gay marriage).

So yes, who you vote for does matter. When you have strong Republican victories like we've seen over the past two years, they move forward on their war against abortion, unions, and gays. Then they pick on the margins of Democrats and sneak away a vote or two from scared politicos more concerned about staying in office than doing the right thing. In the end, we are the people who pay the price.

No, Democrats aren't perfect. It took Democrats 15 years to correct the damage of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but they are the ones who did it (incidently by using the same technique that I outlined at the end of the last paragraph to peel away a handful of Republicans in the Senate who are worried about reelection). Almost every supporter of the bills currently in Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act are Democrats, and while it is not likely to succeed this year, they are the ones carrying the water to keep the issue on the table.

The bottom line of all this is that who you vote for, who you elect really does matter. We are coming up on election year that is going to have a humongous impact on not only the next four years, but likely the next decade of our future. You may say it doesn't matter, but try telling that to the State Department employees who can now take their partners overseas with the same benefits as married couples, to the service members who can now serve openly without fearing that one wrong word will see them kicked out, tell that to the husbands of American citizens who aren't being deported. Yes, sometimes it seems like who is in office doesn't really matter, but when you start taking a good, hard look you see improvements being made and that we are moving in the right direction.

Not fast enough, my god I've written more letters/emails to my elected officials including the White House in the last three years than I ever did from 2001-2008. Maybe that's because I know the people in those positions are listening, that they care, and that pushing them can help move them in the right direction. No matter how hard you push, the overwhelming majority of the other party, and all of the major candidates they are running for the office will not be moved to help you or me achieve true equality.

[Cole Parker]

'I haven't left my house in days.

I watch the news channels incessantly.

All the news stories are about the election;

All the commercials are for Viagra and Cialis.

Election - erection - election - erection

- - - either way we're getting f*****!' -- Bette Midler.