State of New Hampshire


The lawmaker who sponsored New Hampshire's civil union bill will push next year to bring same-sex marriage to the state. Meanwhile, though opposition to civil unions has been muted since last year, legislators who opposed the law are vowing to at least pare it down.

Rep. Jim Splaine, a Portsmouth Democrat who sponsored the civil union bill that passed in 2007, says that civil unions give same-sex couples about 90 percent of the benefits and obligations that heterosexual couples get through marriage. This year, he said, he's filing a bill for same-sex marriage, which he sees as the only way for same-sex couples to attain full equality.

"Right from the beginning, I and other people who have supported civil unions felt that it was a step," said Splaine, a Portsmouth Democrat. "We've got all of the same - and the words are in there - rights, obligations and responsibilities."

But, he said, the roughly 600 couples that have had civil unions in the state do not get all of the same benefits that married people do. For example, he said, businesses currently are not legally obligated to provide the same benefits for civilly united couples as for married ones.

Splaine said he doesn't know how much support there is in the Legislature for full marriage rights for same-sex couples right now, but he described the bill as necessary to propel debate. "We have to have the dialogue," he said. "And it may take awhile."

On the other side, there will be efforts to restrict the civil union law.

Rep. David Hess, who voted against Splaine's bill, has filed a request to repeal only the portion of the bill that allows people who have had a same-sex marriage in another state to have a recognized union in New Hampshire. (The law currently recognizes those as civil unions.)

"That was an aspect of the civil union bill that actually snuck in under the radar screen," said Hess, a Hooksett Republican who is the former deputy minority leader.

Hess said that he didn't move to repeal the civil union law because that would cause chaos in many people's lives.

"A lot of people have taken advantage of the civil union legislation. I think to repeal that would reap havoc in terms of the status of couples who have relied upon that," he said. "And also I don't find that nearly as contrary to public policy as the recognition of same sex marriages."

In Hess's view, marriage is a traditional, Judeo-Christian institution between a man and woman. "I don't think that definition of marriage should be expanded," he said.

Hess's tack reflects a much more muted opposition to civil unions than was seen even in the spring of 2007, when the civil union law was passed and signed into law.

At that time, conservative activist Paul Nagy created an online petition and founded a group called Conserve NH for opponents of the civil union bill. Last week, Nagy said he didn't know what had happened to the petition or the group.

"It sort of went by the wayside," said Nagy, of Andover. "I guess I sort of backed out of that."

He said that if there's a "credible, non-emotional" campaign to oppose the civil union law, he will sign on. And he said he would back any effort to maintain states' rights not to recognize same-sex unions formed in other states.