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NEW HAMPSHIRE: Bishop says he and partner will enter into civil union
The New Hampshire Senate April 26 passed the civil-unions bill, which will give same-gender couples a legal status equivalent to marriage, by a 14-10 vote. The state House has already approved the bill and Gov. John Lynch, has said he would sign the bill. There was no indication April 27 from Lynch’s office about when that signing will occur.
"My partner and I look forward to taking full advantage of the new law," Robinson told the AP after the bill passed.
Robinson, 59, and state health administrator Andrew, 53, have been partners for 18 years, which Robinson wrote about in his candidate biography before his election as bishop.
Robinson said he looks forward to the day when gays will be able to marry.
"I think this is a huge leap forward but it is not full equality until we have equality," he said, according to the AP. "We have come further in a short time than any civil rights movement in history."
Legislative supporters were pleased with the bill’s passage.
"To me this legislation is a credit to our state. We're making this move not because some court some place is telling us that we must," said Democratic Sen. Joe Foster of Nashua. "We do so today because it is the right thing to do."
The bill's success is an about-face from two years ago, when a study panel recommended giving no meaningful consideration to extending legal recognition to gay couples, according to the AP. That panel, staffed mostly by supporters of a ban on gay marriage, concluded that homosexuality is a choice and endorsed a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to unions between a man and a woman.
Two years in a row, lawmakers defeated proposed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
Robinson told an April 10 state Senate committee hearing on the bill that legalizing same-gender unions doesn't threaten religion or families.
According to an AP report at the time, Robinson said during his testimony that he came to the Legislature as a religious leader and a New Hampshire citizen seeking equality for himself and his partner of nearly 20 years.
"What we seek in the civil realm is the equal treatment by the state government in supporting this development of our relationship with the legal, financial and societal underpinnings which are afforded married couples at the very moment they say 'I do,'" he said.
Robinson suggested families would flourish under civil unions.
"Would that we could get all heterosexual couples to take these commitments and responsibilities so seriously," he said. "This legislation simply has nothing do to with religious bodies and their affirmation or rejection of such unions in the civil realm."
Three other states already offer civil unions for gay couples: New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont.
Neighboring Massachusetts in 2004 became the only state to allow gay marriage. California's domestic partnership laws carry the same weight as civil unions, and Maine and Hawaii offer limited benefits to same-gender couples, as do New York City and Washington D.C. A similar law in Washington State takes effect July 22.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was reportedly prepared to introduce gay marriage legislation in the state legislature April 27.
Meanwhile, civil partnerships have been legal in England since December 2005, and the Church of England addressed the law at that time. Some Canadian provinces began allowing gay marriage in 2003, and a countrywide law took effect in mid-2005. The Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod voted in 2004 to defer a decision of the church's stance until its June 2007 meeting.
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