So much for the wedge issue

I wrote recently about New Hampshire towns holding Town Meetings with many voting on a request that all citizens vote on the new gay marriage laws. Here's some more details.

The town of Plainfield voted 185-40 to scrap the original text and replace it with instructions to the town council to write a letter to thank the state legislators for passing the gay marriage laws, affirming marriage equality for all residents.

A summary of the votes. There are 234 cities and towns in NH. The 13 cities and 88 of the towns refused to take up the call to request a vote on gay marriage. Another 70 cities took the vote -- and voted it down. That leaves only 63 towns that approved it. That's only 27% of cities and towns. If the tally took population into account (those 13 cities), the percentage would have been a lot smaller. Gay marriage will stay in NH.

Some commentators speculate that the GOP, very much on the outside in NH, was using this exercise to get a wedge issue on the November ballot as a way to get out the vote. It failed.