In an unexpected move that raised a new hurdle for same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, the state’s House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected changes that Gov. John Lynch had ordered for the same-sex marriage bill.
The House, dominated by Democrats, voted 188 to 186 against amending the bill to make clearer that religious opponents of same-sex marriage would not have to participate in ceremonies celebrating it.
The vote made the bill’s survival less certain, but the measure is not dead yet. It will now go to a joint committee of the legislature, which will try to come up with language acceptable to the House and Senate. But it is unclear whether Governor Lynch, a Democrat, would sign it.
“voted 188 to 186 against amending the bill to make clearer that religious opponents of same-sex marriage would not have to participate in ceremonies celebrating it.”
I am not sure this is a setback. Seems like the bill was not considered strong enough in forcing Traditional Christians to accept gay marriage. The forced imposition of tolerance is getting clearer and more overt….
You’re right, jeff marx, but the governor has said he will veto the bill without the religious safe-guards, so the “setback” comes if the governor follows through with his veto and the legislature is unable to override that veto.
This seems like political gamesmanship to me, and nothing of substance. How can anyone be forced to participate in a marriage ceremony? My state doesn’t have a law that says no one can force me to participate in a regular marriage ceremony; Yet I know no one can. If I am a Priest and a female member of my church wants to marry a male Satan worshiper, can the state force me to participate. I think not.
In fact, now that I think about it, I do not want my state to pass a law saying I am not required to participate in a specific type of marriage ceremony; because that implies I do not automatically have the right to refuse to participate in any type of marriage ceremony?
Say some ss couple ask a harpist or a choir to perform at their marriage. As the proposed bill is worded now could the harpist or choir members decline based on their religious beliefs and not face some type of suit for discrimination?
Is the story true about the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ordering a female photographer to pay over $6000 to a lesbian couple for declining to photograph their commitment ceremony on the grounds that it violated her Christian beliefs?
Where is the line drawn between one persons choice and another persons beliefs?
I don’t know if the NM Human Rights Commission ordered the photographer to pay, but there was a suit and the photographer did have to pay. There was also another suit elswehere where a Dr. was sued because they didn’t want to do in-vitro fertilization for a lesbian couple.
I agree with #3 somewhat. A State law requiring clergy, employees or members to participate or officiate in SSM ceremonies, against their conscience, is clearly unconstitutional as I read the First Amendment, Free Exercise Clause.
Now, I do think a denomination could make such participation mandatory on the part of its clergy and employees (with or without secular law). In the absence of any denominational loyalty oaths, if the person in question was a volunteer then they could not be compelled, even by the denomination, to participate for any reason no matter how trivial or important.
It still preserves the individual freedoms of the clergyman, employee or volunteer on matters of conscience as I think was the intent of the Constitution.
They could always terminate or transfer affiliation or orders to new spiritual home.
But if a clergy person declined to marry a ss couple, couldn’t the government take away their non-profit status?
The real threat is that since “marriage” is administered and governed by the State, the State could deprive Christian ministers of the right to marry anyone unless they also agree to do same-sex marriages. That’s what the real threat is here. Similarly, they could take away a church’s tax exemption (at the state level) for refusing to do same sex marriages, the same way Oral Roberts University lost its tax exemption for its policies regarding African-Americans.
Further, without exemptions churches would be forced to hire employees in same-sex marriages and to provide benefits for them.
That’s just the start of the list.
Is that the same list that would allow any man to self-identify as transgender to use the womans restroom?
I don’t think that forcing clergy to officiate is the primary goal. I believe it is setting up the providers of “ancillary” services such as caterers, florists, photographers, rental halls, etc.
Many congregations rent their parish halls for non-members’ weddings or other functions. Unless they are given certain safeguards, they may not be able to say “no” on religious grounds.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#10–Yes, that is already an issue in my state. If you open up your facilities for marriages by non-members for a payment, you become a public accommodation and under our civil rights laws, could already be forced to allow same-sex ceremonies. It hasn’t come up here yet since we don’t have same-sex marriage or civil unions, but they do do “blessings” and it is a risk lurking here, as well as I suspect other states.
Mitchell, think of it this way: you can’t be *forced* to hire anyone. But *if* you are hiring, and it can be shown that you have discriminated against a certain candidate on the basis of race, you can absolutely be subject to a number of possible sanctions.
Let’s go back to the question of how to interpret this situation for a moment. The vote in the NH House of Reps isn’t much of a “set back” for the gay cause in that it seems to represnet a continuing hardening of determination on the part of liberal legislators to force the acceptance of gay marriage as an advance of “social justice” over all opposition. Yes, the governor may indeed veto the bill now, this time around (as Brandofrd pointed out in #2), but I’d interpret that as only a very temporary speed bump along the way that only slows the drive for gay marriage, and is far from stopping its forward momentum.
Of course, this is not only Gene Robinson’s state, it’s also one of the two heavily secularized states that’s at the top of the polls in terms of the number of Americans who state their religious preference as “None.” The national average of self-reported “Nones” is now up to 15%, according to the latest figures, but in NH and VT it’s a whopping 20-21%. This legislative tempest in a teapot is further evidence that the De-Christianization process has reached an especially advanced and ominous stage in liberal New England.
BTW, does anyone else find it curious that a teeny tiny state like NH has such a large House of Representatives? The vote was a razor-thin 188 to 186, for a total of 374 votes cast in the state house. It seems that in NH, almost every small town gets its own representative.
David Handy+
By that, I meant that the situation in NH is nothing like in CA. The passage of Proposition 8 in the largest state in the country last November was a true setback for the deluded promoters of “marriage equality.” But I see this close vote in the NH House as just another sign of the gay juggernaut continuing to build momentum, and to act more and more aggressively and in an increasingly uncompromising fashion as it gains support in our highly relativistic society. And that’s why the kind of fears expressed by some commenters above, not to mention by the NH Governor, aren’t merely the paranoid fears of neurotic homophobes, as our foes tend to suppose.
David Handy+
#10 if that is the case, the amendment as set out above would not accomplish that. It only protects people from being forced to participate in ceremonies. I do not see how the reception after the ceremony would be included. If you want to write legislation like this it should be worded as follows. No person shall be compelled to participate in, provide facilities for or services in support of a marriage.