I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Republicans and conservative Democrats on Tuesday used a Senate Committee viewed as a friendly forum to seriously endanger domestic partnership legislation.
Before sending the legislation on to Senate Judiciary Committee a 5-4 vote, the Senate Public Affairs Committee approved sending the 816-page bill to a third committee, the kiss of death during a 30-day session.
A bill that must go before three committees for hearings in either the House or Senate during a 30-day budget session is seen as having too much to overcome to survive the session.
Two Democratic senators, Tim Eichenberg of Albuquerque, and George Munoz of Gallup, joined three GOP senators to approve sending the bill to the Senate Finance Committee.
Sen. Eric Griego, D-Albuquerque, warned moments before the vote that adding a committee to domestic partnerships’ already-daunting schedule would doom the legislation.
“Three committee assignments would kill this bill,” Griego said.
Senate Judiciary, which participated in a joint hearing with Senate Public Affairs on Tuesday, still must vote on the bill. If it passes through Judiciary, which isn’t guaranteed, the bill then goes to the Senate Finance Committee. If it clears that committee, the bill then would go to the Senate floor, where the legislation was defeated by eight votes in 2009.
If the domestic partnerships were to clear the Senate, it would then head to the House for hearings before that chamber’s committees.
With only 16 days left in the 30-day session, the already-slim chances the domestic partnerships bill looked much diminished Tuesday.
The bill itself
The domestic partnership bill, at 816 pages, has been a sideshow during a legislative session mostly attuned to dollars and cents due to New Mexico’s sorry financial state.
The sheer size has been cited as an impediment to the bill’s chances. It enumerates every right conferred on same-sex couples if the bill were to pass, while at the same time conspicuously avoiding any mentions of “marriage” or links to the New Mexico state statute establishing marriage.
Advocates had hoped that by avoiding marriage language they might win over state lawmakers opposed to the legislation last year and qualm their fears that it would lead to same-sex marriage.
The result is unusual among other pushes for domestic partnership across the country, said David Masci of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Masci was an invited guest on The Independent’s live blog Tuesday.
“I don’t think there has been a bill this comprehensive in the other states that have some sort of domestic partnership law,” Masci wrote on the live blog.
New Mexico is part of a trend
Tuesday’s action represents the latest challenge to domestic partnership legislation in New Mexico, where advocates have pushed unsuccessfully for years while supporters of such agreements have notched modest success elsewhere in the country.
Several states, including Washington, Nevada, Wisconsin, California and New York, have domestic partnerships or civil unions. A handful of states — Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont — meanwhile, have legalized same-sex marriage.
“It seems that more and more states — like NM — are considering this,” Masci wrote in the live blog. “Public opinion shows that the American people favor granting at least some rights to same sex couples, but are more wary of granting full marital status.”
That wariness of same-sex marriage surfaced during Tuesday’s hearing.
Tuesday’s testimony
Jill Norton, for one, told state lawmakers that she rejected the argument put forth by advocates that domestic partnerships would only extend rights to same-sex couples. The specter of same-sex marriage hung over Tuesday’s proceedings, she said.
“Senators, do not be fooled. This legislation is a prerequisite for same sex marriage,” Norton told the joint committee hearing. Same sex marriage “will be a done deal if this legislation is passed.”
Masci and others disputed Norton’s statement, saying domestic partnerships or civil unions don’t always lead to same-sex marriage. The paths to same-sex marriage are varied, they added.
For example, the top court in Iowa – one of only five states to legalize same-sex marriage — ruled that that state’s marriage law was unconstitutional because it didn’t allow same-sex couples to marry. That state didn’t have domestic partnerships or civil unions.
Norton nonetheless zinged lawmakers supportive of domestic partnerships with a remark some heard as a threat.
“Unless you want a repeat of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, you should oppose this bill,” she said, referring to the victorious Republican who bested a front-runner Democrat in Massachusetts to win an open U.S. Senate seat.
Advocates argued, however, that passing domestic partnerships this year would make life in New Mexico fairer for gay and lesbian couples.
Rose Griego offered state lawmakers a visual aid Tuesday to drive that point home.
It was a green binder. Inside was a two-pound agreement that cost $3,000 and that consolidated all the rights available to Griego and her partner, Kim Kiel, under state law.
“It is not fair that gay people have to go to such lengths,” Griego told lawmakers, referring to the expenses the couple spent to consolidate their rights into one document. Despite the investment, the number of rights available to them pale next to those enjoyed by married couples, she said.
“Separate does not mean equal,” she added.
Tuesday’s speakers run the spectrum
Tuesday’s hearing attracted a range of speakers, from a lawyer working on a legal team defending a voter-approved ban of same-sex marriage in California to a northern New Mexico widow who said her gay son deserved the same rights and opportunities as his two brothers.
“I’ve been Catholic since I was born. I love and respect my church,” said Mary Louise Montoya of Mora. “Our church is very clear that we are to respect all human beings. My sons are very different from each other, but I love them equally and unconditionally. One of my sons is gay. All three sons deserve the same rights and opportunities.”
Brian Raum, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, countered by saying that passage of domestic partnerships surely would lead to same-sex marriage. Raum is on the legal team defending voter-approved Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California after that state’s top court created same-sex marriage in a 2008 ruling.
The hearing also featured dueling interpretations of how Christianity should come down on the issue of domestic partnerships.
Allen Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, said “the church interprets it as a steppingstone to marriage. It parallels marriage.”
As such, the church had to oppose the bill and stand with the “traditional interpretation of the gospel for over 2,000 years.”
But Father Christopher McLaren St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Albuquerque, countered, telling state lawmakers “If Jesus were here, he would be asking you to act with compassion, not fear.”
“I believe Jesus is here today,” he added. “And he is looking at you, the powerful .. telling you that the hurt and pain of my brothers and sisters should be taken seriously.”
