NEW HAMPSHIRE: Bishop calls for passage of civil-unions bill
Episcopal News Service. April 12, 2007 [041207-03]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Bishop V. Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire told a state Senate hearing on civil unions April 10 that legalizing same-gender unions doesn't threaten religion or families.
Robinson was one of more than 300 people who attended the nearly five-hour-long Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a state bill that passed the state House April 4.
On April 12, the Senate committee recommended that would allow same-gender couples to enter civil unions and have the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples.
According to an Associated Press (AP) report, Robinson said during his testimony that he came to the Legislature as a religious leader and a New Hampshire citizen seeking equality for himself and his partner of nearly 20 years.
"What we seek in the civil realm is the equal treatment by the state government in supporting this development of our relationship with the legal, financial and societal underpinnings which are afforded married couples at the very moment they say 'I do,'" he said.
Robinson suggested families would flourish under civil unions.
"Would that we could get all heterosexual couples to take these commitments and responsibilities so seriously," he said. "This legislation simply has nothing do to with religious bodies and their affirmation or rejection of such unions in the civil realm."
The New Hampshire Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and passage is likely, AP reports. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is against gay marriage, but says he's still making up his mind about civil unions, according to the Associated Press. He supports expanding state employee health benefits to cover same-gender partners. If the bill reaches his desk, Lynch can sign it, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it.
The bill would make New Hampshire the fourth state in the United Sates to allow gay and lesbian couples to enter civil unions. Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut provide civil unions. Civil partnerships have been legal in England since December 2005. Massachusetts allows gay marriage.
Some Canadian provinces began allowing gay marriage in 2003, and a countrywide law took effect in mid-2005. The Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod voted in 2004 to defer a decision of the church's stance until its June 2007 meeting.
The Primates of the Anglican Communion said in a communiqué issued at the conclusion of their February meeting near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that the Episcopal Church has until September 30 to "make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention ... unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion."