Concord's Larry Crowe photographs weddings, a side job he keeps to help pay for his kids' future education. It's a business for Crowe, a former photojournalist who documented the L.A. riots in 1994. He meets with couples seeking his services. They interview him, checking for professionalism and warmth. He interviews them, checking for low maintenance and cooperation.

And that, Crowe says, is where the screening process ends. A gay couple planning a civil union or, if it becomes legal, a wedding down the road? Crowe will shoot it, if he likes you. He won't, however, if he believes you'll create headaches for him.

That's his philosophy, for straight people, for gay people, even, as he said, for cats and dogs, if they too are allowed to join paws one day.

"I did say to myself, 'Hmm, I wonder if I will have a same-sex couple sitting here . . . at some point,' " Crowe said. "Will it increase my business? Will I find myself at a gay wedding in the next year? I know that I'm okay with it . . . but if I turn somebody down, will they turn around and sue me because of some kind of thing that never entered my mind? That was never part of it?"

It is part of, though, another obscure issue that's surfaced in the debate over gay marriage. Gov. John Lynch says he'll sign a bill legalizing same-sex marriage only if the Legislature passes extra protection for religious groups and their employees. And that has led to a debate over

whether private citizens who work in the wedding industry, including photographers and videographers, are sufficiently protected from lawsuits if they have a philosophical problem with gay marriage and don't want to participate.

Lynch believes that religious institutions need a security blanket, a way that they may decline to join two people in gay matrimony without the threat of being sued.

It's a stance that proponents of the bill accept if that's what it takes for same-sex marriage to become law in New Hampshire. They've been fighting this fight for years. They feel like second-class citizens without the right to legally marry.

An asterisk that protects a church from the consequences of standing by its convictions? That's okay, those in favor of same-sex marriage say. They'll simply find a church that will perform the ceremony.

Kevin Smith, the leader of Cornerstone Policy Research, a conservative lobbying group deeply opposed to gay marriage, is among those looking to spread legal protection to private business people, like wedding photographers.

Smith was disappointed that Lynch, who'd previously opposed gay marriage, had changed his mind. He called Lynch's changes to the same-sex marriage bill "sugarcoating," adding: "This is the governor giving in to what I think is the radical left of his party."

Some think that Smith is merely creating a diversion to keep gay marriage in the closet by raising concerns about wedding photographers and the like. Smith believes that same-sex marriage runs counter to our very existence. No procreating, no deal.

Fine. But where does this nugget fit in? The one about photographing a gay couple during their big day? Do people like Crowe and Geoff Forester, another local wedding photographer, face a legal threat if they turn down a job?

Crowe and Forester both had long careers in photojournalism before turning to wedding photography. Forester once shot 40 weddings in a single year, when the economy was better. Crowe, a stay-at-home dad, shoots about a dozen weddings per year.

They say their personal feelings about gay marriage are irrelevant. Business is business. And if they choose to bypass a civil union or, later, a gay wedding, for any reason at all, court is the last place they'd expect to end up.

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