The New Year Rings in Civil Unions in New Hampshire

 Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell

This was the scene at 12:01 on January first, 2008 in New Hampshire:

 Civil unions become legal as of January 1st, and I believe 23 same sex couples lined the capitol steps to share their vows the minute they became legal. I am not going to take this time to bash New Hampshire for legalizing civil unions. I wanted to use this space to take a look at two other angles in this issue.

 The first is the way civil unions became law, and the second is the way Governor John Lynch handled the whole issue of civil unions.

 First, New Hampshire became the first state to create a civil unions/gay marriage law without the threat of legal action or the courts intervention. All of the other states that have civil unions created them because the courts threatened them or there were pending court cases. In the case of Massachusetts, the courts ordered the state to create a gay marriage law. Think about that, the courts ordered the legislature to create a law. So much for the separation of powers, the checks and balances. The court overstepped their boundaries, and this was accepted. The funny part is that no law has yet been created although Massachusetts is using the law they didn’t create to marry gays.

 So technically New Hampshire created civil unions the proper way. The people voted for legislators. One of the elected legislators created a bill, it was debated and it was passed and signed by the governor. A perfect example of a state’s rights to create law. Whether you agree with civil unions or not, at least New Hampshire went about them the right way.

 But my problem here is how these legislators got elected. The polls that were shown around the time of the whole civil unions debate showed that they were unpopular. So how did so many pro civil union candidates get elected? In the 2006 election New Hampshire voters went to the polls and voted on a national issue, the war. This has greatly affected the local political scene, and is a perfect example of why you don’t vote on a national issue during a local election. Many voters, upset with the war, voted out of office people who were opposed to civil unions, and voted in the people who were for them. Many Republican voters, upset with out of control federal government spending, and some of the scandals, such as Mark Foley, decided to stay home to teach Republicans a lesson. The Republican voters have been taught the lesson instead. So now whether you are opposed to, or support civil unions, you must accept them in New Hampshire because the voters spoke, and they chose them, even if they had no idea that they were actually voting in favor of them. This is why voters need to do their homework on the candidates they are voting for. Voters of New Hampshire were too narrow-minded in the 2006 election and we are now paying the price for it, on this issue and many others that I will not get into with this post.

 The second angle I want to write about is how Governor John Lynch handled this controversial issue. NOT WELL. Here is why I say this.

 Governor John Lynch likes to portray himself as a moderate, a leader and a uniter of the parties. He was able to pull of this facade while he had a minority of Democrats in both branches of state government. He promised us he could do so much more good if we only trusted him and gave him a Democrat majority. We did, well I didn’t, but the voters of New Hampshire did, and now he has proven he can’t be trusted as a moderate. The facade is gone, he is a liberal.

 Being a liberal, he always intended to push his liberal agenda, and civil unions were a part of it. He just wouldn’t tell us. My problem with him, let me rephrase that, one of my problems with him is the fact that he won’t take a stand on any controversial issue while it is being debated in the state house. He hides on the issues. Before the 2006 election Governor Lynch said he opposed gay marriage, but he wouldn’t say whether he was for or against civil unions. He knew they were unpopular and was afraid to lose votes, so he shut his mouth on the issue. Way to be a leader, gov.

 Once it looked as though the bill would pass, he decided it was safe to announce his intent to sign it. But then there is the issue of how he signed it. Fearing a hit to his all so important image, he sent out private messages to the bill’s supporters telling them when the bill signing would be, ensuring there would only be supporters at the public bill signing. An hour before the signing he issued a public announcemnet about the signing. This ensured very little, if any protesters outside the state house. That’s right he only notified supporters of the bill in advance. He gave very little advance notice to people who may be opposed to the bill. Is that leadership? Is that a uniter of the parties? It sounds like someone trying to hide from his true identity, a liberal. He knew the bill was unpopular, but he was put between a rock and a hard place. He had to sign the bill to appease his leftist legislature, but he had to hide it, hoping we wouldn’t notice. It didn’t work.

 So while technically New Hampshire created civil unions using the proper procedure, the governor showed a real lack of leadership and conviction. And the voters showed a real lack of either knowledge for how the system worked or indifference to the system, blinded by anti-war Bush resentment.

 The New Hampshire government took advantage of the ignorance of New Hampshire voters and pushed across their liberal agenda, you can’t blame them, they made their positions clear ( other than the governor, that is), and they did what they were elected to do. New Hampshire voters just didn’t realize what they were voting for. And that is the real sad part about this whole thing.