Last week there was a rally held at the New Hampshire State House to repeal the marriage equality law. Organized by Rep. David Bates (R-Windham), who has made repeal a personal goal, spending thousands and thousands of his own dollars on mail campaigns to get people on his side. At the rally, one of the featured speakers was the Speaker of the House William O'Brien, who was taken to task in today's Concord Monitor for his "ugly rhetoric".
O'Brien declared that gay couples are "seeking to destroy the very society that we have." He said they are seeking "an ever-growing government that has to compensate for the damage that they would do to our families."The attacks on New Hampshire families have not come from gays, but from O'Brien and his minions who hold a veto proof majority in the House. Deep cuts were made to all social service programs. Developmentally disabled people will not get services, but go on a waiting list after aging out of the school system. The federal government is suing New Hampshire for its failure to provide community based services for the mentally ill, so more people find themselves in locked wards at the state mental hospital. The Children in Need of Services Program was all but shut down, leaving parents, schools and the local police departments without any resources or authority to deal with truancy. Access to family planning has been voted out, and a bill that would have cut TANF grants to families who dared to have a baby while receiving assistance was set aside.He referred to the period since the 2009 legalization of gay marriage in New Hampshire as "the age of loss of values and loss of common sense."
Nobody has attacked New Hampshire families more.
O'Brien and his ilk were elected in 2010 because opponents of NH marriage law poured tons of money into state level races. They knew because NH is not a referendum state, the only way to repeal was to change the legislature from D to R. No similar effort was made by pro-marriage groups to do the same for the other side. Now the only thing standing between equality and second class citizenship is the governor's veto pen.
Please consider donating to the Committee to Elect House Democrats. We need to win solidly in 2012 to turn this around. We have a huge lower chamber--400 seats that have to be contested. That is a lot, and a lot of money needs to be raised for mail and other things to get our message out.
Thank you. I have to run.