Seacoastonline
After outgoing state GOP Chairman Jennifer Horn called on her party to drop opposition to gay marriage from its platform last weekend, experts said Granite State Republicans are historically more accepting of gay marriage than GOP voters in other parts of the country.
Horn made the call to her party members at the New Hampshire Republican Committee annual meeting Jan. 28 in Derry. In an interview this week, she said the state’s platform contradicts itself and that the party cannot continue to be « the party of the Bill of Rights except for this one small group in one small way. »
Horn would not predict if the party will vote to change the platform when it meets at its next convention in 2018. However, party members said last week they agreed with Horn and hope the change is made. Horn said she was met by about three people who booed when she made the call, while others gave a standing ovation.
Dan Innis, a Republican state senator from New Castle who is gay and married, said last week he has not felt discrimination in the Statehouse and believes the party has become increasingly inclusive. He also said both parties will likely look much different in a couple years from how they now look.
Former Republican state Sen. Nancy Stiles, of Hampton, who Innis replaced, was in the Statehouse when New Hampshire legalized gay marriage. She believes more Granite State Republicans accept gay marriage than don’t. « I can only say I hope it will, » Stiles said. « Those that believe they should will have a louder voice within the party. »
Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said the New Hampshire GOP has always been made up of « Rockefeller Republicans, » who are less concerned with social issues than fiscal ones. He said that is partly to do with the Granite State being less religious than other regions of the country where Republicans hold a stronger line on issues like gay marriage and abortion. He cited a recent Gallup poll that showed New Hampshire is statistically the least religious state in the country.
Former Republican state Rep. Fred Rice of Hampton said the issue of gay marriage has become less controversial, but he believes the religious Republicans, who believe it violates their beliefs, still have a voice. He described religious Republicans against the LGBT community as « an unstoppable force versus an immovable object. »
Rice believes the state should separate itself from marriage and instead require all couples to apply for civil licenses rather than marriage licenses, removing gay marriage as a political football. The idea was proposed in the Statehouse when New Hampshire was legalizing gay marriage, he said, but it did not gain support.
Horn said religious and sexual freedom are not incompatible, though, and believes picking a side is not the party’s responsibility. « I think it’s appropriate that we are sensitive of (religious freedom), but at the same time, the Republican Party is not a religious entity, » she said. « We are a political entity that advocates for everyone, equal rights under the law. »
Innis’s husband Doug Palardy, who helped run his campaign last year, said there are major misconceptions about the GOP and its relationship with the LGBT community. He believes many on the left wrongly assume the majority of Republicans are discriminatory against gay people and need to take a closer look at what conservatives stand for.
When Palardy was younger, he said he was more inclined to vote Democrat because there were more Democrats than Republicans who openly supported the LGBT community. Still, he said, there were Democrats who were late to support gay marriage, as well, including Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. As he got older, he said he found Republican values did not clash with his identity as a gay man, and believes he has generally not faced discrimination.
« It’s kind of like it’s become training that you just believe the GOP is not supportive of gay rights, period, » Palardy said. « I think it’s become very easy for the gay communities to not do as much homework, read a headline on an article that makes the GOP look poor… It took me a while of delving deeper into the news, doing research, meeting a lot of Republicans, realizing they’re not what people make them out to be. »
Horn said Democrats have been effective in painting the GOP as discriminatory against the LGBT community, and they have used the issue to advance the idea that Republicans are intolerant.
State Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, said while many Republicans are not opposed to gay marriage, it is still hard to forget that New Hampshire GOP’s platform states it recognizes « marriage as the legal and sacred union between one man and one woman. » « I know that it’s blanket, but it’s the official policy to oppose marriage equality, » he said.
Smith said those who still oppose gay marriage are likely much smaller in number than those who are indifferent or proponents of gay marriage in the GOP. He said opposition to gay marriage appears to be connected to age with younger Republicans having no problem with gay marriage.
Smith said religion is not the only historical driver behind opposition to gay marriage, but it is the one that appears to remain.
« The religious opposition, it’s the last organized opposition to not just gay marriage but homosexuality in general, » Smith said. « Because New Hampshire doesn’t have any strong religious tradition, certainly not now, the opposition to these things was less to start. »