UPDATE: NH Senate PASSES Marriage Bill

[Shana A]

UPDATE: NH Senate PASSES Marriage Bill
by: Louise
Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 13:00:00 PM EDT

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/10687/#129504

UPDATE: Many thanks to Brianrater and Congrats to NH!

From UnionLeader.com:


    A bill legalizing same-sex marriage in New Hampshire passed the Senate today on a 13-11 vote.

    The bill, amended on the Senate floor, draws a distinction between civil and religious marriage, and says that any two individuals have a right to join together in a civil marriage.

    Civil unions already sealed under existing law would convert to marriage on Jan. 1, 2011 unless couples act to change their relationship sooner.

[Michelle.]

"The bill, amended on the Senate floor, draws a distinction between civil and religious marriage, and says that any two individuals have a right to join together in a civil marriage."

Over time this will most likely become the "comprimise" seen throughout the U.S.

[Kaelin]

As long as the state does not recognize "religious marriage" as a legal institution, so that the government classifes all legally-recognized marriages (same-sex and mixed-sex) as "civil marriages," I believe we have an acceptable result.  If there is some persisting distinction that I haven't picked up on yet, then the result would still be icky.  Legal consistency seems to be at the heart of civil rights, whether the legal relationship is titled "marriage," "civil union," "civil marriage," or "wally polly oomf."

Granted, many religions will deny same-sex couples the right to marry, but that is their own right, because it's within the context of the particular private institution rather than the public sphere.  After all, it is common for religions to not recognize or to refuse marriages for reasons other than the sexes of the two people, even when people are legally joined or are permitted to join.

[placeholdername]

This is good news -- it's kind of a moot point though to mark some kind of objective difference between civil and religious marriage -- ALL marriages legally recognized in the US are already civil marriages.  The only connection between marriage and religion from a legal standpoint is that the government invests some churches/other-religious-bodies with the power to officiate a legally recognized civil marriage (in addition to whatever religious stuff the church/body gives along with that).  Plenty of non-religious people can officiate marriages (such as ship's captains etc), and plenty of gay people already have religious marriages that don't currently count as civil marriages.  Moreover, the state couldn't really grant the right to 'religious marriage' as that right is reserved for the religion not the people wanting to get married .

So really, the only downside is that it's an acknowledgement that religious groups have enough sway in government to force them to make double talk to get laws passed.  It really is big progress though, and can only help to get similar laws passed in New York since that's coming up in the future as well.