New Hampshire: More Relevant Than You Think
April 17th, 2007 by Peter
Connecticut’s legislators already passed a civil union law and–despite its inability to confer a single new “right”–voted a same-sex “marriage” law out of committee last week. Of what possible relevance to our state, then, is the New Hampshire civil union battle that the Courant put on its front page yesterday?
As it happens, the Courant unintentionally provides the answer to that question about halfway into the article:
Critics of the civil union bill say that the Democrats have gone giddy with their new legislative power. The Democrats were elected by voters angry at President Bush and the war in Iraq, said Republican state Chairman Fergus Cullen; the party’s legislative majority is “overreading their mandate and going too far too fast on a lot of things.”…
Cullen says the endorsement by Democratic legislators of these proposals just shows that the party is out of step with voters. “It doesn’t reflect any kind of cultural change in the population at large,” he said, “but merely the leftist spasms by a legislature dominated by rookies who can’t help themselves.”
The Courant disputes the “rookies” characterization, but that New Hampshire’s legislature is reflecting less a “cultural change” and more a “leftist spasm” seems borne out by this oh-so-carefully-worded paragraph:
Just what support for civil unions exists among the public isn’t clear. In a poll for the Concord Monitor in December, Maryland-based Research2000 found that 55 percent of voters were against gay marriage, but more respondents favored same-sex civil unions (44 percent) than opposed it (40 percent).
In other words there is no majority support for the bill in New Hampshire. And even the plurality support happens to match the poll’s margin of error: 4 percent. But a legislature turned further left by voter dissatisfaction with the Iraq War will “overread their mandate” to impose radical novelties not supported by their constituents. Sounds familiar.
And the NEXT two grafs of that story state:
“A more recent University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll, done for the Freedom to Marry Coalition, found that 58 percent of respondents supported same sex “civil marriage” – a more loaded term for many than “civil union” – compared with 37 percent opposed.
Unlike Research2000, the Granite State survey expressly stated that religious groups would not have to recognize the civil marriages. The margin of error was 4.4 percentage points. By contrast, in an unscientific online poll by the Union Leader of Manchester, readers opposed the seat belt bill by a margin of almost 2-1.”
You can discount the UNH poll b/c of who paid for it if you like, but at least acknowledge that the article cited to more than one. Basically, it sounds to me like both polls may have been worded poorly, much like the recent one taken in our state. Until I see a poll that surveys a statistically significant number of people and flat out asks them to choose between marriage, civil unions, some other legal arrangement (eg, domestic partnerships), or no rights for same-sex couples, I’m not impressed by either side’s ability to spin the polls their way in any state.
Thanks, Gems.
Friends of the FIC, please remember: always follow the link.
Of course, the interesting question is whether Peter read the article and misrepresented it, or if he simply didn’t understand it.
The link’s there for anyone to see; I limited my remarks to the reputable poll–the one neither side would dispute.
Opponents would dispute the “rookie” comment and so I mentioned the Courant’s reaction to it. But the other thing is irrelevant to anyone who doesn’t already support same-sex “marriage.”
I limited my remarks to the
reputable poll–the one neither side would disputeone that that didn;t hurt my argument as badly.…and wasn’t paid for by pro same-sex “marriage” activists.
Gems wrote;
> Basically, it sounds to me like both polls may have
> been worded poorly, much like the recent one taken
> in our state.
The Manchester (NH) Union Leader survey asked simply,
“Do you favor allowing civil unions?” (Yes/No)
It then asked for information about the survey
taker like political affiliation, home location,
gender, age, and there was a text box for comments.
Apparently the Union Leader poll results were 53% opposed to civil unions. MSNBC has an interesting article on this [and I’d post the link if only the blog software didn’t mistakenly reject this as spam! You can look it up by Googling on “MSNBC” and “18114361”…]
Based upon the write-in comments, you’d think we were looking into a mirror of the debate here in Connecticut. Especially amusing was the comment by one supporter of civil unions, who wrote “Why should heteros suffer alone?”
But some opponents of civil unions in NH saw through the “equal rights” smoke-screen quite clearly. Observing that close relatives were excluded from the proposed civil unions legislation, one asked “Why should sexual orientation dictate who can take advantage of the benefits of the civil union?” And another correctly observed that civil unions are merely “a pretext for gay marriage”.
“Why should sexual orientation dictate who can take advantage of the benefits of the civil union?”
Yeah. I see your point. OK. Then let gays marry!