The New Hampshire House of Representatives has voted to keep gay marriage legal, knocking down an attempt to make the state the first to repeal same-sex marriage.
The Republican-controlled House voted 202-133 to reject a repeal of the 2009 law allowing gay couples to marry in the state. The House then voted 211-116 to officially kill the bill which was first introduced more than a year ago.
"These folks are people just like you are," State Rep. Mike Ball, the chairman of the Manchester Republican Committee, told the Concord Monitor in an interview. "They just want the same things you do. This bill needs to be put down."
The repeal bill was led by Republican Rep. David Bates and supported by 11 Republican co-sponsors. Bates has said that his bill was not about discrimination or bigotry.
"Marriage is not just any two people who love one another and want to spend their lives together," Bates told the Monitor. "I don't suspect there's anybody here who would suggest that it would be appropriate for me to marry my father, for me to marry my brother, for me to marry my children."
New Hampshire was the sixth state to approve same-sex marriage, and residents generally opposed the repeal effort by a two-to-one margin, according to polls.
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