The House Judiciary Committee voted 15-5 yesterday to support creating civil unions for same-sex couples in New Hampshire. The bipartisan vote gave supporters hope that the bill will pass the full House next week and become law later this year.

If that happens, New Hampshire would become the fourth state to adopt civil unions, after Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey. California and Maine offer domestic partner benefits. Massachusetts is the only state that allows legal marriage for same-sex couples.

New Hampshire's civil unions would confer the same "rights, obligations and responsibilities" as heterosexual marriage, differing in name only. That compromise yesterday attracted lawmakers on both sides of the issue, with those on the committee who both favor and oppose gay marriage calling the unions a pragmatic solution for a state with a libertarian tradition.

At the same time, the minority opposition also attracted lawmakers from both sides - those who think the state isn't ready for civil unions and those who think the unions fall short of full marriage.

"What this bill is, and you can call it whatever you want, is segregation. For the first time in the history of this state, you're writing a gay law that is just for gay people, because apparently gay people are not quite human enough to be included with heterosexuals," said Rep. Mo Baxley, who sponsored a same-sex marriage bill that the committee passed over for civil unions. "No one has come to me and told me that this is the right thing to do. What I have heard is that this is the politically expedient thing to do, and that makes me terribly sad."

Other advocates for gay rights said Baxley had set her sights too high. Former lawmaker Raymond Buckley, who is poised to be elected chairman of the state Democratic Party this weekend, called it "truly one of the happiest days of my life."

Of eight openly gay House members, Baxley is the only one who opposes civil unions if marriage can't be achieved outright, Buckley said.

"I certainly respect Representative Baxley. I don't know of a single gay or lesbian person in the state of New Hampshire who doesn't support marriage, but we also know there is a crying need for legalization for these (same-sex) relationships and these families," said Buckley, an at-large board member of the National Stonewall Democrats, a gay and lesbian activist group. "While we can work on the issue of marriage, let's at least give these families the legal rights and responsibilities that they deserve."

The committee weighed several bills related to same-sex unions - from a proposed constitutional amendment to ban them to Baxley's full marriage bill - before voting to endorse civil unions yesterday. Until this session, lawmakers had never proposed any same-sex marriage or civil union bills in New Hampshire. Just three years ago, the Legislature voted to block the recognition of out-of-state civil unions and same-sex marriages and to create a commission to study the issue. That commission, which completed its work in late 2005, recommended reinforcing the state law banning gay marriage with a constitutional amendment, but lawmakers rejected that idea during the 2006 session.

Several commented yesterday on progress in the Legislature and in public opinion since 2004 - to say nothing of progress since the late 1980s, when lawmakers passed a ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians (since repealed), and when the discourse was laced with homophobic slurs.

"I sat here many years ago and heard a member of this House say, and I quote, 'Homosexuals (want to adopt) to raise their own meat.' I sat in this room and heard a member of the state Senate of the state of New Hampshire say that he didn't mind if homosexuals gave blood, so long as they gave all their blood," said Rep. David Cote, chairman of the judiciary committee, before calling for a vote. "To be sitting there to hear those words and to be sitting here today as chairman of this committee is a rather remarkable experience."

Of the 15 supporters, four were Republicans, including three - Reps. D.J. Bettencourt, Bea Francoeur and Greg Sorg - who were among the highest scorers last year on the scorecard issued by the House Republican Alliance, a conservative group that rates all 400 House members on their adherence to Republican platforms and the state and federal constitutions. The fourth Republican, Rep. Anthony DiFruscia, said he would support civil unions, but "if the word 'marriage' comes in, I'm on another page."

Sorg, a third-term lawmaker from Easton, said he was pleased that the issue would be decided by elected lawmakers and not forced by judges, as happened elsewhere.

"I just rejoice that it's being done here (at the State House)," he said. "And I am enough of a civil libertarian that I felt I was going to have to be convinced not to accept a bill like this, rather than to be convinced to accept it."

Some in the minority said they could not support civil unions because they would not be extended to any two people who live together and want to enter into a legal partnership; the bill as endorsed by the committee would prohibit civil unions between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, siblings and other relationships that would be banned under the state's marriage-incest laws.

Single page