New Hampshire Gay Marriage Repeal Effort Underway, Rep. Jim Splaine Warns

PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

New Hampshire State Representative Jim Splaine said Thursday that
opponents
 of gay marriage are preparing a new assault on the state's gay marriage
 law,
 the Portsmouth-based Seacoast Online reported.

Splaine, a Democrat, was the chief backer behind a bill that recognized
gay and lesbian couples with civil unions in 2007 and last year's gay marriage
 law.

Speaking to students at the University of New Hampshire, Splaine said
three bills that seek to repeal the law have already been filed. He cautioned
 that the
 midterm elections would likely alter the makeup of the Legislature in
 favor of repeal.

“You could well see there's not going to be [the] votes we need to keep
marriage from repeal,” he said.

A February effort to repeal the law six weeks after it went into effect on
 January 1, 2010 was crushed under the weight of a 210 to 109 House
vote. Another bill that sought to define marriage as a heterosexual union
 in the New Hampshire Constitution suffered a similar fate, but succeeded
in attracting greater support.

One lawmaker, State Representative Nancy Elliott, created an uproar and ultimately offered a backhanded apology for remarks she made during a
House Judiciary Committee hearing considering the bills.

“We're talking about taking the penis of a man and putting it in the rectum
 of another man and wriggling it around in excrement. And you have to
think,
would I want that to be done to me?” Elliott, a Republican from Hillsborough, testified.

Elliott also alleged that the new law was hurting children, a standard claim of
 gay marriage opponents.

New Hampshire public schools are “showing presentations of anal sex …
They are showing our fifth graders how they can actually perform this kind
of sex … that is the context of the lesson, that 'This is something that you,
 as a fifth grader, you may want to try,'” she said.

Elliott is among the lawmakers backing a bill that would put a gay marriage
ban in the state's constitution.

Splaine, who is not running for re-election this year but promised to return
in 2012, said he did not believe the effort would gain much traction in the Legislature.

“I think it's unlikely that the effort to repeal will succeed. I think there's a
 number of Republicans who will be on our side,” he said. “But I am very
 fearful.”

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF