This week, New Hampshire took a major step forward in the struggle to establish equal rights for all. On Wednesday, the New Hampshire Senate voted 13-11 to legalize same-sex marriage ("N.H. Senate votes to legalize same-sex marriage," April 29), after making two notable modifications to the bill, a version of which had been approved by the New Hampshire House of Representatives in March ("N.H. House approves same-sex marriages," March 30). Assuming no interference from Gov. John Lynch, D-N.H., the bill will become law, making New Hampshire the fifth state in the country to legalize gay marriage.
One of the senators' modifications drew a clear distinction between civil and religious marriages, and created an exception that allows both civil and religious officials to refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. While this modification was crucial to the bill's success (the Senate Judiciary Committee had previously voted 3-2 against an earlier version of the bill), it also represents a roadblock on New Hampshire's path to securing equality for all of the state's citizens.
The distinction between civil and religious marriage, on the one hand, represents an important compromise between secular proponents of the expansion of the definition of marriage, and religious defenders of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Under the modifications to the bill, each group will be allowed to define marriage on its own terms. The provision that allows religious officials to decide which couples they want to marry should similarly seem reasonable to even the most staunch secularists, and comforting to religious opponents of same-sex marriage.
On the other hand, the modification providing a similar protection to civil officials is fundamentally flawed. Civil officials are employees of the state, and are thus both subject to state laws and obliged to implement them. If same-sex marriage is to be legalized in New Hampshire, public employees should not be allowed to couch what amounts to discrimination in the alleged protection of their First Amendment rights. Imagine, for instance, if we offered the same exception to civil workers at the Division of Motor Vehicles. We would never permit a DMV worker to refuse to process a women's driver's license application because the worker believed that only men should drive. All civil workers must be held to the same standard.
This modification, in addition to creating a dangerous precedent for civil employees, seems to castrate the larger policy goals of Wednesday's legislation. It is as if New Hampshire is working to legalize gay marriage, but only half-heartedly.
This week, at first glance, seems to have been marked by bold action in the New Hampshire legislature. But while the state took steps forward this week, it also took a step back.
