Jim Splaine just doesn't give up. The odds are rarely with Splaine: The 61-year-old Portsmouth legislator has spent most of his 40-year career in public life as just one of 400 in the New Hampshire House, and much of that time he's been the leading legislator on liberal political causes that appear lost. A fan of publicly financed elections, Splaine has fought to recognize Martin Luther King Day, repeal the death penalty, and gain rights for gays and lesbians.

But Splaine, the prime sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill that appears on the brink of becoming law, has won unlikely and hard-fought victories and left an outsize imprint on the state's politics.

Two things in particular stood out about Splaine during this year's debate on same-sex marriage: He never stopped pushing his cause, and he kept right on talking to and publicly expressing faith in fellow lawmakers, even those who had originally voted

against his bill. That attitude may have made a key difference: In both the House and the Senate, changed votes provided the crucial margin to pass the bill. Last week, Gov. John Lynch, who had previously said he opposed same-sex marriage, said he would sign the bill if the Legislature approves additional protections for religious groups.

The zen of Splaine: "Most people in politics, most people period, are not mean," he said. "If they're not voting with you, part of the fault is yours."

People need to go through a process of changing their minds, Splaine said. Splaine relishes that process: He set the floor schedule for the House debate on same-sex marriage, lining up a series of personal speeches in which legislators told about their families and their fears. More than one centrist Democratic legislator, including Concord's Steve Shurtleff and Gilford's William Johnson, credited those speeches with changing their minds.

Splaine also loves public hearings. To his mind, one of the best ever seen in the State House was the April 15 Senate hearing on gay marriage.

Same-sex marriage is hardly Splaine's first uphill fight. By Splaine's count, he sponsored 10 different bills to create a Martin Luther King Day in New Hampshire, including the first one ever and the one that finally passed in 1999, making New Hampshire the last state to recognize the holiday. He was the prime sponsor of a death penalty repeal bill that passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in 2000.

"In Jeannie Shaheen's case, all I asked her, when she was considering vetoing the death penalty, is give me a chance to make the case," Splaine said. "She did that."

Splaine brought a group of death penalty opponents to Shaheen's office. "I had to respect that," he said. "She had made her determination."

This year, he returned with a bill to create a commission to study the state's death penalty law.

'Come out, come out'

Gay rights may be Splaine's biggest cause and legacy. Splaine, who is openly gay, first walked into the House in 1969 as a 21-year-old legislator. He said he was intimidated to be both the youngest person there and a closeted gay man. The American Psychiatric Association still listed homosexuality as a disease. That was the year of the Stonewall riots, when gay men in New York City fought a police raid at a gay bar, riots that are sometimes credited with sparking the gay rights movement.

Just over a decade later, rumors started to fly about Splaine's sexuality. Inspired by the openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and his catch phrase, Splaine, by then a state senator, started letting people know that he was gay.

"When he said 'Come out, come out, wherever you are'. . . that got to me," Splaine said. "If all of us did come out, or more of us did come out, people would see our faces and we'd be able to tell our stories."

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