As some of you know, New Hampshire recently caught up with Vermont, allowing for same sex marriage in their fine, if somewhat behind the rest of us, state.  

There was some question, however, as to whether or not this would stand.  Last election cycle, the Granite state elected a whole bunch of ultra-right wing, ultra-crazy, tea party style republicans, to the point where they had a veto-proof majority if they were willing to work as a sold block.  The one saving grace of this is that some of them are too crazy to compromise.  One of the items on the chopping block was marriage equality.  The thing is, however, they figured out last year that they really did not want to have that fight.  

So they held it off for a year.  And that’s when things got interesting.

Support for marriage equality has, in fact, grown in New Hampshire.  Just like in Vermont and Massachusetts, this is the sort of thing that when people claim the sky will fall if it happens and then, when it happens, there’s no falling sky, people start to think “hey! You people promised me moon rocks raining down form the heavens!  You have no credibility!”  Or something.  I probably can’t tell exactly what people who believe that sort of thing would think, because from my point of view, they’re very crazy, very gullible, or both.

So, anyway… yes, marriage equality in New Hampshire is not only not unpopular, repealing it is *wildly* unpopular:

The WMUR Granite State poll shows that only 27 percent of New Hampshire adults support repealing same-sex marriage, while 50 percent strongly oppose repeal. The percentages are similar to a poll asking the same question in February.

Note that phrase “strongly oppose.”  This is a state that’s thinking “what did we put you people in charge for, because it certainly wasn’t this.”

So what happened yesterday?

The initial panic from the anti-marriage forces could be seen early when NOM (the National Organization for Marriage, which, ironically, is opposed to my marriage) floated support for a “compromise” bill, which would replace same-sex marriage with civil unions.

This happened in Massachusetts some time back.  When they were discussing the possibility of same sex marriage, the debate shifted dramatically to the point where instead of conservatives opposing civil unions, civil unions became the inadequate conservative alternative to full marriage equality.  So NOM, which blatantly opposed even civil unions until recently, tried a hail mary pass in which they would support civil unions in hopes of avoiding marriage equality.

Why did they do this?  Because even though they are a bigoted, vile, hate group they are not, in fact, complete morons.  They, in fact, saw their entire New Hampshire campaign collapsing before their eyes.

And that’s when this happened:

It’s a bigger win than we even thought: actual vote count was 211-116! #NH4M #lgbt

— NH Families (@NHFamilies) March 21, 2012

That win is ours.  Not only did we defeat the attempt to repeal marriage equality.  It went down in flames.

Oh, and to NOM:

“While we are disappointed in this vote today, we remain committed to giving the voters of New Hampshire the opportunity to restore the traditional definition of marriage. The only time gay marriage activists are able to win is when they can bypass the people and get activist judges or legislators to do their bidding, usually after plying them with large campaign contributions.

Yes.  Representative Democracy is such a pain.