BREAKING: New Hampshire repeal efforts defeated

Today, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted down legislation that would have repealed the state’s two-year-old freedom to marry law along with a key vote to defeat the Bates Amendment, which would have forced a non-binding referendum on marriage onto the November ballot and replaced marriage with civil unions. The final bill was defeated by a vote of 211 to 116 and the Bates Amendment by a vote of 162 to 188.  Stripping away the freedom to marry in New Hampshire was a top priority of national anti-gay organizations, which had predicted that they would be able to garner the vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override the promised veto by Governor John Lynch.  
 
“Live Free or Die is alive and well in New Hampshire,” said Freedom to Marry’s National Campaign Director Marc Solomon. “Today’s vote affirms that Granite Staters stand strongly against stripping away freedoms from any of their neighbors. Our opponents tried to abuse the 2010 Republican legislative sweep in New Hampshire to repeal the popular law.  What they didn’t count on was the fact that the freedom to marry is becoming a bipartisan value, as resoundingly reflected in today’s vote.”
 
Freedom to Marry is a founding board member of Standing Up for New Hampshire Families and invested significant leadership and staff resources to protect the state’s freedom to marry law.  Freedom to Marry was also the largest financial investor in the campaign.  
 
Only seven Republicans in the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted in favor of the freedom to marry law in 2009; today, however, more than 100 voted not to repeal the law.  

Click here to learn more about Standing Up For New Hampshire Families and to get involved.