The champagne is on ice at the Notchland Inn on Route 302. Proprietors and longtime partners Ed and Les are ready to raise their glasses to New Hampshire later today, when the state is set to pass a broad civil union bill granting gay and lesbian couples virtually all the same legal rights as married heterosexuals.
Supporters and opponents of the measure agree that it will be approved, and last week Gov. John Lynch, a moderate Democrat, said he will sign it. When he does, it will make New England the first region to have every state granting a measure of legal rights to same-sex couples. Even as the bulk of the country has passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and civil unions, New England has stubbornly gone its own way.
Advocates of gay rights say the latest milestone is especially significant because it comes in comparatively conservative New Hampshire, where polls have shown locals becoming more tolerant of same-sex unions after watching neighboring states pass similar laws without major social fallout.
"New Hampshire is probably the most important piece of the puzzle," said Les Schoof, 55, the former general manager of the American Ballet Theatre who opened a mountain inn here in 1993 with his partner, Democratic state Rep. Edward A. Butler, 57. "People in the rest of the country think about New England as the Socialist Republic of Vermont or those crazy liberals in Massachusetts. But they know that people in New Hampshire don't just jump on the bandwagon that easily."
To be sure, New England is made up of the bluest of the blue states. Decisions made here cannot categorically be taken as national bellwethers, and so far, 26 states have passed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage while 19 states have adopted similar statutes.
Nevertheless, opponents of same-sex marriage look at what is going on in New England and express growing concern. "The more states that do this, the less radical and more plausible the idea may appear in others," said Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council.
Advocates, meanwhile, see promise in New England's historical role as the conscience of the nation. States here were the first to embrace racial integration in schools and they abolished the death penalty for crimes such as robbery and burglary in the 19th century, before much of the rest of the country.
And they have taken the lead on same-sex couples. Vermont became the first state to offer civil unions in 2000. Connecticut followed suit in 2005, and its legislature is now pushing forward with a full gay-marriage bill that observers say could come to a final vote as early as June.
Massachusetts, after a 2003 Supreme Court ruling there, became the first state to allow same-sex marriage -- which differs from New Hampshire's civil unions largely in that it uses the highly symbolic word "marriage."
In February, Rhode Island's attorney general issued a landmark ruling that opened the door for residents there to legally marry in Massachusetts, effectively making it the second state to recognize same-sex marriage. Maine, meanwhile, has approved domestic partnerships. To date, nearby New Jersey is the only state outside New England to adopt an expansive civil union law.
The gradual spread of legal rights for same-sex couples from state to state is now seen as a model for the rest of the nation, particularly out West -- where Washington state last week followed California in passing a more limited domestic partnership law. A similar bill is pending in Oregon. In a sign that the momentum is expanding in the Northeast, New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer (D) said this week that he would send a gay-marriage bill to the legislature by late June.
‘Out front again’
Evan Wolfson, executive director of New York-based Freedom to Marry, said: "Clearly, New England is our engine. The classic pattern of a civil rights movement is a patchwork -- some states advance toward equality faster. We see New England out front again."
New Hampshire -- long considered the Republican foothold in New England -- was the last holdout. A commission created by the previously Republican-dominated legislature as recently as last year issued a recommendation in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. But several factors, observers say, contributed to a 180-degree shift in the political climate here.
The first was the sweep in state elections last year giving Democrats control of both the upper and lower house in Concord for the first time since 1874. Also, residents have grown accustomed to seeing more gay people in their state.
Same-sex couples have flocked to gay-friendly inns -- such as the Notchland Inn and the Highlands Inn in Bethlehem, which bills itself as a "Lesbian Paradise" -- that have sprouted in the state, as they have in other parts of New England. Many of these inns cater to same-sex couples who wed in Massachusetts and are taking their honeymoons.
Also, in recent years, hundreds of same-sex couples, seeking respite from high taxes and land prices, have relocated here from more liberal corners of southern New England. Many, such as JoAnne Rainville, 52, a registered nurse, and her partner, Brenda Taylor, 56, a mortgage lender, have settled in the flannel-shirt-and-shotgun regions of the rural North Country.
"We've moved in and begun changing people's minds," Taylor said. She and her partner of 25 years settled permanently here in the late 1990s. When they first started going to their local sports bar, they would sit next to beer-drinking men with farmer caps who watched sports on TV and occasionally hurled the word "homo" at players having an off day.
"But then people started to get to know us," she said. "We knew things had come full circle in 2004, when we went off to Vermont to be joined in civil unions after they passed it there. When the people at our sports bar found out, they got together and gave us a party to celebrate our union. Now I call those flannel-shirted guys 'my protectors' if anyone ever did try to mess with us around here."
In 2003, a University of New Hampshire poll found that 54 percent of state residents supported civil marriage licenses for same-sex couples, a number that gradually increased to 58 percent in February. When asked in February if civil marriage for same-sex couples "bothers you," 74 percent said no and 26 percent said yes.
In fact, in strongly libertarian New Hampshire, a new bill that would make it the last state in the union to adopt a mandatory seat-belt law has generated far more controversy, political experts say.
‘Okay, what’s the big deal?’
"I just don't think it's a major issue anymore," said Jim Lupien, 40, a lifelong Republican and owner of the Cool Moose Creamery & Candy Store on Concord's old-style Main Street. "Vermont did it, and then Massachusetts, and people around here just started thinking, 'Okay, what's the big deal?' I'm not pro-gay, but that's no reason to deny them their rights."
The Catholic Church and other religious groups have come out against the legislation, arguing that it effectively sanctions homosexuality, to which they are opposed. But much of the political opposition has instead focused on what some feel is a "gay exclusive" law that should be expanded to include other types of same-sex couples.
"We haven't really gotten into the morality of the argument," said Republican state Rep. Maureen C. Mooney, an outspoken critic of the bill. "What I'm opposed to is carving out a chapter in our laws for a special interest group. Why can't two sisters enjoy these rights, or a boyfriend and girlfriend who don't want to get married?"
By settling for civil unions rather than pushing ahead with same-sex marriage, liberal Democrats in New Hampshire are effectively bowing to Lynch, the state's hugely popular governor, who opposes same-sex marriage.
Still, for Butler and Schoof, together for 29 years, the law would effectively grant them all the legal protection as married heterosexuals, including visiting rights for a hospitalized partner -- something the pair see as particularly important after an incident several years ago denied Schoof access to seeing Butler after he had been hospitalized for a heart problem.
"Once this bill passes, nothing can separate us," Schoof said. He jokingly added, "well, at least in New England."
