Lorem Ipsum

It's been one year since New Hampshire began to recognize same-sex marriages. (The law was passed in 2009, but it didn't go into effect until January of 2010.) And now the state legislature has switched to majority Republican, and there's been talk of trying to repeal the law.

So I'm pleased to see a new poll in which “62 percent of survey respondents opposed repeal.” And 51% are strongly opposed to repeal. And only 29% are in favor of repeal.

The anti-equality people are usually quick to shout that these matters should be decided by the people, not by any of the usual three branches of government. (I have a whole rant about this that I still haven't quite managed to get into publishable shape.)

~Weirdly~, I haven't seen any of those people calling for a referendum in NH. ~If a vote is the right way to decide this in other places, then why not NH?~

Of course, a vote is really the wrong way to decide this anywhere. Civil rights should not be subject to popular votes.

But if you're going to insist on votes, you really ought to be consistent.

(Note: It's possible that there are some people who have called for a vote in NH. Among other things, I imagine that NOM and their ilk believe that with a sustained enough and aggressive enough homophobic-ad campaign, they can convince the electorate to switch. It's happened before. So I may be wrong about the lack of calls for a vote in NH. But I haven't personally seen such a call so far.)

. . . In other news, while I'm here: Maryland state Senator James Brochin may shift to supporting marriage equality tomorrow. He used to be in favor of civil unions instead of marriage, but yesterday's viciously homophobic testimony in opposition to marriage (in the state Senate's public hearings) may've convinced him to change his mind.