A bill authorizing civil unions for gays cleared its last hurdle Thursday in New Hampshire, the first state to embrace same-sex unions without a court order or the threat of one.
The Senate passed the bill 14-10, sending it to Gov. John Lynch, who announced last week he will sign it.
“To me this legislation is a credit to our state. We’re making this move not because some court some place is telling us that we must,” said Democratic Sen. Joe Foster of Nashua. “We do so today because it is the right thing to do.”
“Live free or die,” as the state motto says.
I was listening to reaction to this on NPR yesterday, and continue to be astounded by two basic reactions I keep hearing from opponents to such measures:
- The sense that they are “losing” something because someone else is “getting” something. As if their platonic ideal of marriage is threatened with getting gay cooties on it, as if there’s only so much marriage mojo out there, and if it gets spread too thin, they won’t get their share.
- Talk about plugs. Lots of talk about plugs (and sockets) and how plugs (and sockets) are only meant to go one way, and going another way doesn’t make any sense, so why have the law recognize it (as if making sense was ever a basis for lawmaking)? And what’s with this obsession with plugs and sockets, given that most of the gay folks I’ve heard discussing the subject talk about it in terms of affection and commitment, not as a legal permission to engage in gay nookie. But that seems to be what some opponents (rather suspiciously) obsess on.
At any rate, kudos to New Hampshire. Here’s hoping more states follow suit.