‘No’ to fire/ambulance

Thursday, March 11, 2010

We’re not sure what the voters of Milford said Tuesday when they shot down a plan to buy land for a new fire/ambulance facility, but we think they made a mistake.

The town needs a new facility. The fire department is crowded, the ambulance bay is crowded. The plan to combine them in a facility adjacent to the existing fire station had the support of four of the five selectmen after a town facilities committee spent months studying the issue. But voters decided they knew better. Precisely what it is they know isn’t clear, other than they know they didn’t want to buy this land.

Perhaps they think the price was too high. Perhaps they think a fire/ambulance facility should be built elsewhere, but if they do, they neglected to tell town officials about it. They just went out and voted against a perfectly reasonable plan, leaving Milford firefighters and ambulance personnel with an unfortunate status quo.

Sure, times are a bit tough, and perhaps that’s what this is all about, but the cost to homeowners was minimal and is only going to get steeper in the future.

Unless, of course, voters are saying “never” to a fire/ambulance facility, and that would be unfortunate.

We hope town officials don’t give up on this plan. It’s a good one and our firefighters and ambulance personnel deserve a new home. Let’s take another shot at this next year. Remember, it took several votes before the police got a new facility but voters finally did the right thing. Perhaps they will again.

Gay marriage

Voters in Amherst and Milford supported a proposal asking the state Legislature to propose a constitutional amendment on gay marriage and that’s sad.

This petition warrant article, on the ballots of many New Hampshire towns, was marketed as a “let the people decide” concept but was, in reality, an anti-gay marriage drive aimed at overturning a decision by the state Legislature that finally gave gay men and women the right to marry.

It’s a pity, and we hope the Legislature takes one quick look at the results of this non-binding nonsense and ignores it.

New Hampshire has a republican form of government for many reasons but one is to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. Simply put, “the people” simply can’t vote on every issue. On questions of statewide or nationwide issues, decisions must be left to elected officials.

Or, of course, the courts.

The Founding Fathers knew that, which is why they created a republican form of government and set up the Supreme Court as the final arbiter. So, why didn’t the anti-gay marriage people take their quest to the courts? Because they knew they wouldn’t win. In recent years, courts have come to finally realize that gay men and women should be granted the same rights as straight people just as, finally, the U.S. Supreme Court came to realize that black men and women should have the same rights as white men and women.

The anti-gay marriage people were, however, pretty confident that they could get people to vote in favor of their “let the people decide” petition because, after all, they would get the anti-gay marriage vote and they would also convince enough people that they really meant what they were saying to get some votes there, too.

They were right.

But this was never about letting the people vote. This is about making sure that gay men and women don’t have equal rights.

There’s more to this, too, as one of our readers pointed out. The proposed constitutional amendment says this: “The State shall only recognize as marriage, whether in name or effect, the union of one man and one woman.”

Our reader believes, and we concur, that “whether in name or effect” refers to civil unions, not just marriage.

If that is the case, then the aim is not just to define marriage, but to make sure that gay men and women don’t have the rights they deserve.

Fortunately, the Legislature still has the final word. We don’t need a constitutional amendment on this issue. Gay marriage is here and it should stay.