BETHLEHEM, N.H. (AP) – If the rainbow-painted deck chairs, fluttering rainbow flag and purple shutters don’t make it clear, the Highlands Inn’s toll-free number, 877-LES-B-INN, leaves no doubt as to whom this White Mountains resort caters to.

Innkeeper Grace Newman began hosting commitment ceremonies at this self-proclaimed “lesbian paradise” in the 1980s. Newman says she has lost track of the number of commitment ceremonies that have happened there; she estimates about 300 couples have honeymooned at the inn after getting civil unions in Vermont or marriages in Quebec, Canada, both short drives away.

In 2008, the inn’s 25th anniversary coincides with another milestone: legal recognition of civil unions by New Hampshire, which began Jan. 1. Newman, veteran host and overseer of many a union, didn’t waste any time. Two New Hampshire couples celebrated civil unions during the inn’s annual New Year’s Eve dance after the clock struck midnight.

From the North Country to the Statehouse steps, other same-sex couples are making similar plans.

“It [was] pretty easy to take a little break from the party and celebrate some civil unions,” said Newman, who plans to get her own civil union with longtime partner Maria Doyle this September at the inn.

The new law plants another rainbow-colored flag in New England, which has grown increasingly gay-friendly since neighboring Vermont became the first state to legalize civil unions in 2000. It has been a quick reversal for New Hampshire, where as recently as 2004 lawmakers reacted to Massachusetts’ gay marriage law by passing a ban on recognizing those unions here.

The new law defines civil unions as the equivalent of marriage in all respects but name.

Beginning in 2008, five of six New England states will provide some form of legal recognition to same-sex couples: marriage in Massachusetts; civil unions in Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut; domestic partnerships in Maine. Rhode Island does not allow same-sex marriages, but does not explicitly ban them, making the state one of only a few whose gay residents can legally marry in Massachusetts.

As ceremonies for same-sex couples go mainstream in New Hampshire, some innkeepers, hotel managers and tourism marketers are working to get some of the expected upswing in business, hoping to turn it into another niche market for lodging properties, photographers, florists, bakers, sleigh rides and other providers of wedding services.