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  Those Bells Are Ringing

  Posted Friday, May 01, 2009 3:12 PM | By E.J. Graff

  Bonnie, FAB idea about Justice Mikulski! I hope you have POTUS's ear on this. Or at least FLOTUS?

  In unrelated news, this week the Senates of both New Hampshire and Maine passed bills to gender-neutralize their states' marriage laws. NH's Senate bill now has to be reconciled with its House bill (also passed); no one's sure whether the governor will sign, veto, or leave it alone to become law. Maine's hasn't gone to the House yet; that state also has a nastier referendum process, which could make it harder to keep a marriage law even if passed.

  Why is the Granite State getting behind same-sex marriage? Well, there are a lot of possible reasons. It's watched its neighbors (Vermont, Canada, Massachusetts, and a little farther to the south, Connecticut) open marriage to same-sex couples, with yawn-worthy results: no locusts, plagues, or hurricanes. New England LGBT advocacy groups, especially GLAD, have been extremely savvy about working toward equality throughout the region, with a slogan of "6 x 12": equal marriage in all six New England states by 2012, a goal that's looking quite realistic. And, of course, the air is just a little clearer up here than in the more humid parts of the country. (Okay, maybe that was unnecessary...).

  Renee Loth, editorial page editor at the Boston Globe, has yet another idea: It's because of women. New Hampshire's legislature is now majority female. And women are more socially liberal on family-related issues in general—including such issues as early childhood education and gay rights. You go, girls!

  Yet another reason for at least two female Supremes? I guess this post is related to the potential nomination of Justice Mikulski after all.
  

  Filed under: Supreme Court, LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, barbara mikulski, New England

About E.J. Graff

• E.J. Graff is associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, where she directs the Gender & Justice Project. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. As a journalist and author, her work has appeared in such venues as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Good Housekeeping, The Nation, The New Republic, and in more than a dozen anthologies. She collaborated on former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy's book Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men--and What To Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Her first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, has been widely cited in legal journals, reprinted for academic use, entered as courtroom exhibits, and quoted by government policymaking bodies.

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