Same-Sex Marriage Heads to Senate Floor

While the Senate’s Democratic leaders have worked hard to avoid taking an unambiguous stance on same sex marriage, the public, or at least those who care about the issue, haven’t been shy about telling them how to vote.

"I have 1700 messages on my blackberry alone. It’s very hard to keep up."

That’s Senate President Sylvia Larsen. She says the contacts from the public have been evenly split between supporters and critics, and have included many pre-fabricated messages. When asked to predict the fate of the gay marriage bill, Larsen relies her own set of talking points.

"I think it’s a relatively close vote, and I think people are still listening and talking amongst each other, but I think it’s a pretty close vote."

The Senate judiciary committee’s vote to recommend killing the bill was definitely close; Democrat Deb Reynolds, the committee’s chairman, joined GOP senators in a 3 to 2 vote. As she did so, Reynolds stressed that NH is still getting used to civil unions, and isn’t yet ready for same sex marriage. According to Manchester Senator Lou D’Allesandro says that’s also pretty much the bottom line of voters in his district.

"The bulk of my constituency is a strong Roman Catholic traditional constituency. I have, I think, the greatest number of older NH citizens in my district, and I’m getting a lot of response from them."

-Do you think voting one way or the other will cost people their seats?

"I think people are going to do what they think is the right thing to do. Is there a time that voting one way or another can cost you an election? Think of the Senators in the US senate who voted for the civil rights bill, the voting rights bill, I mean Al Gore Sr. lost his seat in US Senate because he voted for civil rights. He did the right thing."

D’Allesandro didn;t identify the right thing on this bill. But as he goes, so too could gay marriage. The same might be argued offellow Manchester Democrat Betsi DeVries. She declined to speak on tape for this story but did say in passing that same sex marriage a tough bill. While it’s hard to know what exactly how to read that, the basic math among Republican son this bill is pretty clear:

"I would be surprised if there were any who voted for it. We’re going to have a caucus right now, but I’d be surprised if there was any support for them."

That’s Senate GOP leader Peter Bragdon. Should his forecast hold up it would simply take two democrats to vote against it for the bill to die. Assuming Senator Deb Reynolds stands by her earlier committee vote, that number shrinks to one. In that Governor Lynch has shown zero interest in seeing the bill land on his desk, the likelihood of finding that vote seems probable. But one predicts this bill’s course at one’s own peril. In the house it overcame a deadlocked committee vote, and an initial failure on the floor to pass by seven vote margin. Portsmouth Representative Jim Splaine is the bills lead sponsor. As a former Senator, he's also aware that the political calculus can be quite different in the upper chamber. Even so, Splaine says Senators who would place their own electoral fortunes above what he says is a matter of basic civil rights deserve to be made to fell uncomfortable.

"It’s going to happen in Maine. It has happened in Vermont. It’s happened in Canada, it happened in Massachusetts. So it’s going to happen here, in 2, 4, 6 years. Other than politics is there a reason? If there isn’t then Senators should be voting for this."

A new poll conducted by the unh survey center shows a majority of state voters support gay marriage.