Leave the law alone

The GOP in New Hampshire appears determined to hold a vote on repealing marriage equality in the state. It looks like they'll at least wait until after the GOP primary, when the national attention has drifted elsewhere. It will pass. Gov. Lynch (Dem.) will veto it. The question is whether the GOP has enough votes for an override. The citizens of the state quite like marriage equality by a large margin, though I don't have exact numbers at the moment.

The Concord Monitor, an important newspaper voice in the state, published an editorial calling to keep marriage equality. The cool part of the editorial is that it was written by Monitor staff, not a gay advocacy group.

The editorial lists the frequent reasons for banning gay marriage and debunks each one. Here is my summary:

* Marriage is between a man and a woman. Who gets to define it? It is just a statement of bigotry.

* Marriage has been restricted to straights for thousands of years. Slavery was an ancient practice too. Mercifully, times change.

* Marriage is for procreation. But we don't bar straights who have no interest in kids from getting married.

* Gay couples aren't as good as raising kids. And some straight couples aren't either. How many examples of great gay parents do you need?

* There's that slippery slope to legalized polygamy and incest. In the off chance such a bill actually comes up, lawmakers may vote no.

* Gay relationships are immoral. Yeah, some churches think so. But lawmakers must also protect freedom from religion.

* Gay marriage threatens the institutions of marriage. Nope, encouraging marriage encourages marriage.

Leave the law alone.