The New Hampshire House on Wednesday
voted against two measures that attempted to repeal the state's
six-week-old gay marriage law, the Boston Globe reported.
A bill that would have repealed the gay
marriage law approved by lawmakers last year was crushed under the
weight of a 210 to 109 vote, while a proposal that sought to define
marriage as a heterosexual union in the New Hampshire Constitution
gained a bit more traction but ultimately died from the blow of a 201
to 135 vote.
Both proposals met with strong
opposition from Democratic members of a key House panel which
considered the bills last week. With a 2 to 1 margin, the House
Judiciary Committee recommended that House members pass on the
measures.
State Representative Nancy Elliott
touched off a loud debate in the blogosphere after video of her
testimony condemning gay sex at the hearing was posted on
YouTube.com. The video was quickly taken down.
“We're talking about taking the penis
of a man and putting 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.
Elliot 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.
On Tuesday, Elliott reeled back her
statements concerning the teaching of anal intercourse to fifth
graders in the Nashua public school system. She told reporters that
she could not verify the information but “firmly believed it to be
so” prior to entering the hearing.
Elliott's backhanded apology was made
to the “Judiciary Committee, the Nashua public schools and its
employees and the speaker as well as anyone else affected by what I
said.”
Representative David Bates, a
Republican from Windham, is behind a grassroots effort to pressure
lawmakers to vote in favor of amending the state constitution. The
campaign encourages towns to put a non-binding resolution calling on
lawmakers to approve the amendment before town voters. Bates tried
unsuccessfully to delay the vote until after most towns had weighed
in on the matter at town meetings next month.
During the debate, Representative
Alfred Baldasaro, a Londonderry Republican and sponsor of the gay
marriage repeal bill, said being gay was a choice.
“A black person cannot change the
color of their skin, but a homosexual can change their sexual
preference any time,” he said.
Baldasaro has previously likened gay
marriage to polygamy and an incestuous relationship.
“What about [laws] being
disrespectful to sister-sister that love each other, sister-brother,
sister-mom, incest, it's in there. Aren't we discriminating against
all of them?” he said last week during a committee hearing. “What
about the Muslims, now? Everyone's praising the Muslims that are
killing us. What about them? They want three, four wives ...”
After the vote, gay marriage opponents
said they'll have the final say in November when voters head to the
polls.