CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A commission that started off having trouble getting things done made a big decision Oct. 5 – voting to recommend a constitutional amendment stating marriage is between one man and one woman – and setting up same-sex marriage as an election issue next year.

Commissioners on the state’s same-sex marriage study panel had planned to consider versions of civil unions and marriages adopted in other states. But Sen. Jack Barnes, R-Raymond, proposed his motion recommending a constitutional amendment before commissioners got to that point. It passed, 7-4, with two abstentions and two members absent.

“Everybody’s dancing around it, I thought I’d bring it to a head,” said Barnes, who believes same-sex marriage will become as hot a campaign issue as abortion.

Other commissioners were dismayed that the measure was introduced so quickly. Commissioners have been gathering testimony from the public and experts for months – they are to present their reports to the Legislature by Dec. 1.

“To jump right to the support of a constitutional amendment … one certainly thinks that perhaps politics played a large part in this vote,” said Commissioner Raymond Buckley, a Democrat and former House lawmaker who opposed the motion.

A bill recommending a constitutional amendment has not been submitted, but Barnes said he will sponsor it if asked.

“I’m going to vote for it in the Senate if it comes through as a piece of legislation,” he said.

Any move to change the state’s constitution would have to go to pass a public vote by a two-thirds majority. Before getting there, legislation recommending an amendment would need to pass the House and Senate each by a three-fifths majority.

Barnes acknowledged the measure would have a hard time making it out of the Statehouse to a public ballot in November 2006, but “seven of us believe the people of New Hampshire have a right to vote on this,” he said.

Former Republican Sen. Russell Prescott; Reps. Maureen Mooney, R-Merrimack; Tony Soltani, R-Epson; and Paul Brassard, D-Manchester, also voted for the motion, as did public commissioners Scott Earhshaw and Jack Fredyma.

Buckley and Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth; and Rep. Jim MacKay, R-Concord, voted against it, as did public commissioner Ed Butler. Butler and his partner, Les Schoof, are challenging a 1913 Massachusetts law that forbids out-of-state couples from marrying if their union would not be legal in their home state. Opening arguments in that case began last Thursday in Boston.

The commission was created in May 2004 to study all aspects of same-sex civil marriage and its legal equivalents, but did not begin meeting regularly until April 2005. It is made up of legislators, state officials and members of the public and is charged with studying all aspects of same-sex civil marriage and its legal equivalents. Republican and Democratic commissioners clashed early on over appointments to the panel. During months of meetings, commissioners also have struggled with the panel’s purpose and methods.

“I was surprised that they decided that their purview was to make specific recommendations,” Buckley said. “I thought it really was to gather information and provide information for the Legislature, for their decision-making process over the coming years.”

Chair Tony Soltani, a Republican, disagreed. The Oct. 5 vote “sets the ability for the majority to begin to write the report,” he said.

“To go just through the evidence is not going to make too much sense without having a conclusion or recommendations,” said Soltani, who voted for the motion. He said commissioners will vote on models of same-sex unions from Vermont, Connecticut, Hawaii and Massachusetts in upcoming meetings.