The Daily Background

Well there’s good news from my home state of New Hampshire today. Governor Lynch (D) signed into law the civil unions bill which easily passed the legislature earlier this year. Here’s the Associated Press:

“We in New Hampshire have had a long and proud tradition taking the lead in opposing discrimination,” Lynch said. “Today that tradition continues.”

Couples who enter civil unions will have the same rights, responsibilities and obligations as married couples. Same-sex unions from other states also would be recognized if they were legal in the state where they were performed.

Legislators who gathered for the bill signing packed the governor’s chambers and overflowed into an adjoining sitting room. They snapped photos and burst into applause as he signed it.

“I’ve listened and I’ve heard all the arguments,” said Lynch, a Democrat. “I do not believe that this bill threatens marriage. I believe that this is a matter of conscience and fairness.”

The bill will go into effect in January of 2008, and obviously this is great step towards equality. And what’s better is that it wasn’t done by a court: legislative measures for ensuring equality are stronger and the way these things were meant to be done in the first place. Per Wikipedia: “New Hampshire is unique in that of U.S. states to adopt civil unions or marriage rights for same-sex couples, as of April 2007, it is the only state to authorize the status purely through legislative action. In other states, the civil union laws or marriage rights were mandated by a court or the legislature was acting under threat of judicial action.”

In a related story, a new poll has found that four in ten Americans either have close friends who are gay, or gay relatives (the other six in ten probably do too, but just don’t know it). The Pew Research Center spells out the obvious for everyone:

About half of all women, young people, college graduates, political liberals and mainline Protestants say that someone close to them is gay, the survey found. But significantly fewer men, conservative Republicans and older Americans report that a good friend or family member is homosexual.

An analysis of survey results suggests that familiarity is closely linked to tolerance. People who have a close gay friend or family member are more likely to support gay marriage and they are also significantly less likely to favor allowing schools to fire gay teachers than are those with little or no personal contact with gays, the poll found.

Duh. The Pew folks continue on to say that “Overall, those who say they have a family member or close friend who is gay are more than twice as likely to support gay marriage as those who don’t — 55% to 25%.”

One shocking result of the study: 15% of those who have a close friend or family member who is gay think it’s okay for schools to fire teachers just for being gay. What’s more shocking is that a full 38% of those who don’t have gay friends or family members think it’s okay for schools to fire teachers based solely on sexual orientation. Both of those statistics are to me outrageous.

I think the idea of gay people being teachers is what gets some of these people to react in a bigoted way- the idea that gay people gasp might be teaching their kids. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found that 89% of Americans think that gay people should have the same job opportunities as straight people. I guess, as with so many of these things, it’s all in how you ask the question.

Update: Senator/Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd talked about the NH civil unions bill signing today:

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