More good news on the marriage equality front--or rather, at least the absence of of bad news: Democrats in the legislative assemblies of Iowa and New Hampshire have voted down various Republican proposals for gay marriage bans. Via Mydd diarist desmoinesdem:
Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate failed this morning to force floor votes on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In the Iowa Senate, only one of the 32 Democrats joined the 18 Republicans in signing a petition that would have brought a marriage amendment to a vote on the floor. Shortly thereafter, only one of the 56 Iowa House Democrats voted with the 44 House Republicans on a procedural motion that would have brought a similar measure to the floor.
Republicans had been hoping to use Democratic blocking of gay marriage bills against Dems in the upcoming legislative election campaign, but the Dems are standing firm. Smart choice, seeing as how a substantial majority of Iowans think that gay marriage isn't worth the legislature's time right now.
Meanwhile, the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee has voted down two bills that would have challenged New Hampshire's same-sex marriage law:
A House committee has recommended that two bills attempting to reverse New Hampshire's same-sex marriage law be killed.
One bill called for the repeal of the same-sex marriage law, while the other called for a public vote on the matter.
By a margin of 2-1, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted to kill both measures.
This is one of the adverse consequences that Republicans face for letting the social conservatives have control of the henhouse for so long. When the rest of the country is focusing on jobs, healthcare and fairness in the financial sector, some people still think that preventing two people who love each other from getting a legal contract should be the most important thing in the world.