A proposal to create spousal unions - granting same-sex couples the same legal benefits as marriage - would extend what the bill's supporters described as long-overdue legal rights to gay and lesbian couples. At a public hearing in Concord yesterday, several lawmakers and residents said the unions would bring New Hampshire in line with neighboring states.

"It is, to my mind, unconscionable that we force gay and lesbian couples to live in non-legal limbo, giving them no legal rights toward each other," said Sen. Jacalyn Cilley, a Democrat from Barrington. "Our great state, beyond perhaps any other, is grounded in the notion of individual liberty for each of its citizens. It is time that these same individual liberties are extended to our gay and lesbian citizens."

But the House Judiciary Committee's hearing on the proposal - which drew numerous opponents as well as supporters - also laid plain a difference in approach among gay rights activists.

Rep. Jim Splaine, a Portsmouth Democrat who sponsored the spousal union bill, described his proposal as a compromise measure that stands a chance of passing the Legislature. Although Splaine supports same-sex marriage, he worried that many lawmakers would be turned off by the word "marriage." His plan would give same-sex couples all of the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, and it outlines how the unions could be dissolved.

"I believe the process of lawmaking needs compromise," said Splaine, who also introduced an alternative amendment that would give same-sex couples full marriage rights.

"If you do not believe that we can do marriage in 2007, then I urge you to do the next best thing," he told the judiciary committee.

Other activists, however, said that anything less than marriage wouldn't suffice.

"Doesn't that word bring with it dignity?" asked Rep. Mo Baxley, an Andover Democrat who has sponsored a same-sex marriage bill, which would remove the ban on same-gender marriages from state law and make all marriage terms gender neutral. Any form of same-sex union, Baxley suggested, would be a form of segregation.

But after decades of fighting, other politicians and residents argued that one step forward is better than nothing. And several lawmakers questioned whether a same-sex marriage bill would succeed. Gov. John Lynch, for one, opposes gay marriage and has thus far steered clear of the same-sex unions debate.

"I don't agree with those who say we should kill the good while waiting for the perfect," said Raymond Buckley, a former Democratic lawmaker.

The spousal union bill is just the first in a series of proposals to expand legal rights for same-sex couples that will come before lawmakers this session.

In addition to Baxley's bill, which would create full-fledged same-sex marriage, lawmakers will debate a Vermont-style civil unions proposal. Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, a Manchester Republican, proposed that bill, which would give same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples. Splaine considers spousal unions to be somewhere between civil unions and same-sex marriage, since "we would be terming our partners as spouses."

Sen. Bob Clegg, a Hudson Republican, has proposed a form of "contractual cohabitation," which would extend the legal benefits of marriage to any two adults who enter into an agreement with a justice of the peace. Clegg's bill differs from spousal and civil unions because it isn't limited to same-sex couples - any two adults, whatever their relationship, could enter into the agreement.

With the recent political transformation in the State House - Democrats won a majority in the House and Senate in November - supporters of the spousal union proposal expressed cautious optimism that the measure could pass the Legislature.

The number of opponents who turned up for yesterday's hearing, however, indicated that the proposal won't pass quietly. Dozens of residents - citing concerns for what they described as traditional family values - attended the hearings on that plan and a bill that would recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages. With so many people hoping to testify, the hearings continued into the late afternoon.

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