Is it bye-bye for the Balboni bill? Constitutional amendment to bar legalization of gay marriage in N.H. likely to resurface next year

By John Collins

The Broadcaster

March 23, 2006

CONCORD -- By the time this Broadcaster reaches you, Mo Baxley of the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition predicted last week that CACR-34, the constitutional amendment to cement traditional marriage as the law of the state, should've been declared officially dead in the State Representatives Hall.

On March 9, the 400-member House was set to vote on the amendment, written by Republican Mike Balboni of Nashua, its primary sponsor. By Baxley's personal count several days before the vote, Balboni's "soft language" ode to traditional marriage was on its way to overwhelming defeat.

The amendment, which is identical to those that have now been "permanently" inserted into the constitutions of 13 other states, defines marriage as being strictly "between one man and one woman," and declares further that such heterosexual couples "shall be the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized" in New Hampshire."

But not only was CACR-34 about to fall short of the necessary three-fifths of the House membership needed to pass, Baxley announced, she expected it to be defeated outright by a solid majority of the state's lawmakers.

"These are people who basically hate gay people," said Baxley last week, referring to Balboni and the amendment's other supporters and co-sponsors, including Jack Barnes of Raymond and Nancy Elliott of Merrimack. "They can wrap it any kind of language they want, but that's what it is. These are the same people who think gay people should be rounded up and locked up and, you know, put in an internment camp somewhere."

Balboni, who says he's pushing to get the marriage-definition amendment through the Legislature and before the voting public to honor the memory of his democracy-loving, Italian-immigrant grandparents, objects strongly to Baxley calling him a gay-hater.

"To put that kind of label on anybody without knowing them personally is not the proper way to discuss the issue," he said. "I just feel so thankful that we have this system of government in which the people are able to say how they want to be governed that I want the people to decide how they want to be governed. That's why I am so against what happened in Massachusetts."

And what happened in the Bay State, Balboni points out, is that "basically just four people, four unelected, activist judges, usurped the people's power" and decided for the rest of the state's population that same-sex marriages ought to be legal.

His constitutional amendment -- defining marriage strictly as "one man/one woman" -- would prevent New Hampshire's Supreme Court justices from "usurping the people's power" in a similar fashion, Balboni said.

"Those representatives who are against letting the people decide this issue now will eventually be forced to allow the people to have a say; events will force it."

The main "event," said Balboni, which is looming larger every day and ought to inspire backers of traditional marriage to get behind his constitutional amendment but fast, is the real threat of a gay or lesbian couple who were legally married in Massachusetts moving north of the border in order to legally challenge New Hampshire's 1987 law that declared same-sex marriages illegal.

"I have heard this from people within the gay community," said Balboni. "Right now there is incredible pressure, looking for the right (Massachusetts gay or lesbian married) couple to move to New Hampshire and do this. Certainly within the next five years that will happen."

When the inevitable challenge to New Hampshire's anti-gay marriage law does happen, however, the legal battlefield will be found not in the State Supreme Court building but inside the Statehouse -- says the Freedom to Marry's Baxley.

"The way the gay and lesbian community in New Hampshire has taken action (in the past 15 years) has been through the legislature," she says. "New Hampshire doesn't have a climate that would make court cases successful. The whole thing is, you have to change people's hearts and you don't do that in a courtroom."

Hearts -- and minds -- are already changing, it seems, going by the results of the House Judiciary Committee's seven-hour public hearing on CACR-34 held on Feb. 7 in Representatives' Hall. Of about 300 people present, roughly four out of every five attendees spoke passionately, or wrote their names down, in opposition to Balboni's amendment. (Later, committee members voted 14-7 to recommend that the full House kill the bill.)

"And it wasn't just the gay community," says Baxley, "These were the average Joes-on-the-street, and some card-carrying lifelong members of the NRA, saying 'You know what? Knock it off. This whole notion of taking a group of people and amending the constitution to carve them out -- that's NOT my value system; that's not what I care about; that's not what I believe; don't be messing with my constitution to further your crazy agenda.' And it is crazy."

Technically, of course, it isn't "crazy" -- it's CACR-34. And it'll be back for another vote next year, promises Balboni, should his amendment fail to make it out of the New Hampshire legislature this year.

"When this constitutional amendment finally goes to a vote before the people of New Hampshire, there would need to be a two-thirds majority for it to pass," Balboni points out. "With such a high threshold, if they believe that such a high percentage of people are in favor of (gay marriage rights), what do they have to lose by letting it go to the people?"