Standing Up for New Hampshire Families — a coalition of New Hampshire residents and business leaders — held a press conference today urging state lawmakers to abandon efforts to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage law and focus on jobs. On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to approve a measure that would eliminate the law and enact civil unions. The full House is expected to take-up the issue in January.

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The two separate bills would preserve existing same-sex marriages but replace the law with civil unions for unmarried adults, including relatives. Anyone would be able to discriminate against such couples “in employment, housing and public accommodations based on religious or moral beliefs.” A WMUR Granite State Poll from Oct. 14 found that voters want to keep marriage equality by a two to one margin.

Rosie O’Donnell appeared on MSNBC with Thomas Roberts this afternoon to discuss her new talk show on OWN and how changes in the media may be contributing to the bullying of LGBT youth. Speaking of her now infamous feud with Donald Trump, O’Donnell said she was “pretty shocked on how many stations he was allowed to go on and sort of debase my character, my physical appearance, my femininity, every single thing about me…he was bullying for like seven months,” she said, adding that “some of the 24-hour news networks seemed to take pride in the fact that they bully people.”

“When I was on T.V. …nobody was asking you if you were gay or not. You know, nobody ever asked me in the entire run of my show if I was gay, because it wasn’t part of the social zeitgeist, it wasn’t part of pop culture,” O’Donnell observed. “But then, after I was on a few years, Will and Grace went on the air and that changed everything. And then Ellen came out. You know, it changed. So you have to think that in the 15 years so many things have changed and some parts of the country have not really caught up.” Watch it:

Earlier this month, an audio recording captured an election volunteer for Virginia state Sen. Janet Howell — a Democratic incumbent running for re-election to the state Senate — admitting to “gay-baiting” Republican voters into opposing her openly gay Republican challenger Patrick Forrest. Kavita Imarti, an intoxicated volunteer for Howell, can be heard admitting to Forrest’s field director that the campaign is informing conservative voters of Forrest’s sexuality and claiming that he will push a “homosexual agenda” in schools. “We’re showing your party [is]… prejudiced against someone because of their sexuality,” Imarti shouts on the recording.

Yesterday, reporters asked Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) about the incident during a campaign fundraiser for Forrest. McDonnell responded that Republicans “stand for equal opportunities for all people” and insisted that supporting a gay candidate would not hurt his standing among the party’s more conservative social base:

“I don’t know what she’s doing but I can only say that Patrick and I — and I think all of us in our party — stand for equal opportunities for all people. I think you heard his message about job creation. He’s not focused on divisive social issues. He’s focused on the two things that really matter, getting people back to work and getting our spending and our government under control, and I think that’s what people care about, especially independent voters right now.”

But McDonnell’s own record on issues of “equal rights” is mixed at best. While McDonnell did eventually issue an executive directive prohibiting discrimination “based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation” in state employment, he doesn’t support extending workplace protections to gays and lesbians in the private sector, arguing that “there isn’t really any rampant discrimination on any basis in Virginia.” He also opposes marriage equality and gay and lesbian couples adopting children.

Mega church leader Joel Osteen reiterated his belief that being gay is a “sin” during an interview with the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, but said that gay people should still purchase his new book “Everyday a Friday” and learn from its message of empowerment. “They don’t have to let people steal their power, especially all the bullying, things that we see going on with that,” he said. Osteen also suggested gays could be converted:

Somebody that maybe had this certain difficulty now, maybe in five years they’re not if we will love them. You know, I think one of the messages I speak on sometimes is, you know, we can love people back into wholeness. But sometimes we want to beat them down — you got this addiction and you shouldn’t have that, or you did this — I just don’t think that’s the best way.

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Osteen said that he would attend a same-sex marriage but wouldn’t officiate it, before adding, “we’re all growing, we’re all changing.” “Somebody who has a certain difficulty now, maybe they won’t in five years. You know, one of the messages I speak to is, you can love people into wholeness.”