The state's commission on same sex unions dealt several setbacks to proponents of gay marriage Monday.

In a series of votes, the panel said it would urge state lawmakers not to allow gays to marry, not to recognize out-of-state same sex unions and not to set up a domestic partner registry for couples who cannot legally marry.

.... the panel defeated his recommendation by a 10-2 vote.

They opted for a broader amendment stating "religious freedom being an essential right in New Hampshire, no person should be required to perform any marriage which would otherwise offend his or her conscience."

The commission ....meetings often have been marked by conflicts over appointments and how to proceed.

Monday's meeting was no different, as an argument between its chairman and another member broke into a shouting match.

Early in the meeting, Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, R-Manchester, distributed a letter to commission members in which he accuses Rep. Tony Soltani, R-Epsom, the panel's chairman, of using homophobic slurs against an openly gay member of the commission.

Shouting and table-pounding ensued as Soltani and Vaillancourt argued.

Soltani and Vaillancourt, both Republicans, sit next to each other in Representatives' Hall. Vaillancourt sent the letter to House Speaker Douglas Scamman last week. But Scamman isn't responding to the letter, so Vaillancourt took it to his fellow commission members.

full article @ boston.com

Not only should only Heterosexuals [Breeders] be allowed to marry, BUT I think that no one should be required to rent to someone who offends his or her conscience AND that no one should be required to employee someone who offends his or her conscience AND that anyone who offends my conscience should get the hell up and go to the back of the bus.

Race is different from sexual orientation, no doubt, but you have to be stupid or just completely intellectually dishonest not to realize that the laws and rationales used to prohibit gay marriage when applied to any other criteria is plain and simple bigotry.

Though homosexuals were not subjected to the same systematic atrocities and genocide that African American’s endured, that does not some how make their rights any less important or unalienable.

It is this same Majority attitude of self interest [adsorption?] that brought us slavery and then segregation and now the contemporary attitude of dismissal regarding the concerns of woman, African Americans, and homosexuals. It disgusts me that people with such sound and compassionate political outlooks can suddenly display such selfish disregard toward issues that don’t directly affect them.

The difference between Conservative Republicans whose concerns don’t extend beyond their own waist line and Progressive Democrats who interests only include others like themselves is only a matter of degree. Don’t stand on a soap box and tell me about the troubles of workers, the poor, or children if you are unwilling to address all injustice regardless of Race, gender, or sexual orientation.

People who do not support the right of all Americans to marry are no better than the cowardice apologists that wanted African Americans to accept the insane policies of segregation because of their own unwillingness to pay the political price of doing what was right. Unless of coarse they are just straight up bigots like Soltani.

Civil Unions sounds alot like another attempt at a seperate but equal compromise to me, but I am willing to accept it if the gay community accepts it AND if it really is EQUAL.