Chris Christie, as promised, has vetoed a bill, passed by both the state assembly and senate, which would have allowed gay couples to marry in New Jersey.
Critics were quick to react. The ACLU said:
With his veto, Gov. Christie keeps New Jersey in the past while the rest of the country continues evolving. The ACLU-NJ will work tirelessly with the people of New Jersey and fellow civil rights groups to overcome this setback by overriding the Governor’s veto.
And Cory Booker issued this statement:
As Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, ‘the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.’ Despite the Governor’s disappointing veto, I remain encouraged that one day soon all New Jersey residents will be able to enjoy equal rights, privileges and justice. Let us all who believe in equality continue to labor in this cause.
Christie believes the issue should be decided by a state-wide referendum.
First – keeping NJ in the past is exactly where Christie (and other anti gay marriage folks) WANT to keep us. ‘Cause staying in “the good ol’ days” is when life was “normal” and “good”.
Second – he’s a smart politician. It’s likely the veto will be over-ridden and the bill will still pass. But Christie will have stayed true to his position and his supporters come re-election time.
I watched Gov. Christie at rhe 6PM newa, and he said he want the residents of N.J. vote on it, and let the people decide, rather than himself. I think that is how it should be.
Sandy, I would concur with you if Christie were also to agree to a public referendum on raising taxes on the wealthy in New Jersey (instead of cutting jobs, programs, and property tax aid), which polls show is favored by the residents of New Jersey by much larger majorities than those favoring the recognition of same-sex marriage.
Surely, if we can vote on who is allow to marry whom, we certainly should be allowed to vote on tax increases, no? If not, why not?
Of course, Christie will never allow this, because it would undermine the myth of fiscal responsibility that he is trying to create for himself.
I will not delve into the argument that civil rights should not be subject to the tyranny of the majority, except to remind of the story recently in the news about the referendum on granting voting rights to women that was held in New Jersey in 1915. It was soundly defeated. Now who among you would argue that women should have ever been denied the right to vote? Recognition of rights often occurs only by means of legislative leadership, not from lagging public opinion.
Well, right wing politics being what they are, I went out and bought some aspiring today to be sure I had some contraception available, just in case.
I meant to say “aspirin”. I already have a headache just trying to figure out how to get the damn things to stay between my knees.
I”m confused. Don’t our representatives in state government reflect the will of the people? Why do we need a referendum? Oh that’s right. Just another hoop to jump through.
The will of the populi vote the politicians in but then they do the will of their own special interests and push their own personal mores. The majority of voters get ignored and put on the backburner so the pols can foist their special agendas to the media and make it look like they’re doing the job. Christie needs to nut up, do his secular job and take off his Bishop’s miter and put it away until he’s consecrated.
Maybe he’s just blowing smoke so he can take the tax bullseye off the rich?
Maybe he’s just biding time until Mitt or Rick come knocking on his mansion door?
Does he really want more years of being a jersey shore governor?
Maybe he’s a been there, done that, check the A box type of guy.
Now… on to the college of cardinals.
I agree that we should put everything up for a referendum vote. That way we can become California – defeat all tax increases, enact all tax decreases, keep all of our programs fully funded and have a massive fiscal mess as a result.
I wouldn’t be surpirsed if his calculus didn’t assume a ballot referendum would get more conservatives to the polls in November with the hope of getting NJ’s electoral votes for the Republican nominee.
Ignorant. Retrograde. Thug.
Right Bill, but unfortunately these are ignorant and more importantly, narrow-minded thugs wielding power. They’re Howdy Doody’s dangled by special interest groups.
If you’d like to have your voice (perhaps) heard use this link and fire away:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/SelectMun.asp
First, let me just say for the record that I am a long-time supporter of Marraige Equality, and I think the Governor should have signed this bill, and I think that the NJ Supreme Court should have ruled the NJ’s Marriage laws, as constituted, descriminate against same-sex partners.
That said – if the veto can’t be overridden – the best chance to fix this injustice the soonest is to amend the NJ Constitution. There is nothing “wrong”, or “illegitimate”, with adding protections to a Constitution – in fact, what would be wrong would be to refuse to do so for ones own political gain.
Sorry about the typos, here’s the corrected version:
First, let me just say for the record that I am a long-time supporter of Marriage Equality, and I think the Governor should have signed this bill, and I think that the NJ Supreme Court should have ruled the NJ’s Marriage laws, as constituted, discriminate against same-sex partners.
That said – if the veto can’t be overridden – the best chance to fix this injustice the soonest is to amend the NJ Constitution. There is nothing “wrong”, or “illegitimate”, with adding protections to a Constitution – in fact, what would be wrong would be to refuse to do so for ones own political gain.
What is the problem with understanding Marriage is between a Man and a Woman?
Linguistically, changing the age-old meaning of the word weakens the term’s descriptive power, reducing it to a mere connotation for any amorous relationship between two human parties who have chosen to make a governmentally supervised commitment to each other. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but “marriage” by any other definition would be diminished.
The founding fathers had a pretty clear understanding of the type of country that they hoped to create.
“If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations. And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world. To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission of some limitation of the right of the majority to exercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen.
John Adams (“On Government,” 1778)
Edward Hotel – you keep tooting the same horn on these posts, but never seem to actually respond to the challenges to your arguments.
1. the problem is the “age old meaning” of marriage includes many things that we no longer currently sanction legally (women being property of their husbands, white people barred from marrying black/hispanic/asian people, and the list goes on). So, please let go of the “tradition” argument – for many of us, it is meaningless.
2. Marriage in this country comes with important rights (such as the right to make end of life decisions regarding your spouse). It is really just silly to pretend that it is just a word.
Spicoli,
The John Adams argument might apply if one was arguing to add an amendment to take away the rights of a minority that they already enjoyed (in fact, that’s basically the argument that was used to uphold the overturning of Prop 8 in California) – that is not the case here.
The proposal is to amend the State Constitution to give a minority a civil rights protection under the law that they do not currently have – the idea that anyone – especially Democrats – would argue against being able to do that through a state constitution, is absurd.
Edward Hotel,
that “age old” definition of marriage is not all that old, nor all that universally accepted. The Bible documents that the pious and learned Jacob, while heretosexual, had two wives ( Rachel and Leah) and two sex slave / baby machines ( Bilhah and Zilpah) . And his Old Grand Dad Abraham had a wife, Sarah, and one sex slave/ baby machine named Hagar. I don’t think either arrangement raised too many eyebrows. That was probably an “age old” definition of marriage back in their day.
On the other hand, Moses, while going for the monogamous and heretosexual option, married a Cushite woman, and found that the marriage was very unacceptable to, at the very least, his sister Miriam, who began to gossip viciously about the arrangement.
God did side with you on that one, Edward Hotel, and struck Miriam down with leprosy.
And the Prophet was, famously, a child molester, good ol’ Spiro T-for-Tawana. At least he was by our current moral standards. (A novel by a woman about Mohammed’d child bride predictably aroused the same sort of Muslim world outrage which once greeted a novel by the very boring Salman Rushdie.)
And the “other” Prophet, aka Joseph Smith, had a bevy of wives (though for a long time he kept this Divine “revelation” restricted to just a chosen few of his closest associates).
So why is your boring self trying to cite the Bible today? Do you even take the Bible altogether seriously if it comes to that? At least my two examples are a matter of histgorical fact.
And even during the supposed period of the Book of Exodus, Pharoahs, according to archaeologists, supposedly wed their own sisters.
So I don’t know what your point is today, Spiro T-for-Tawana. But then, I usually can only discern at best a very modest one in your posts.
“Sandy, I would concur with you if Christie were also to agree to a public referendum on raising taxes on the wealthy in New Jersey…”
Funny how Christie wants to give voters a say regarding same sex marriages while denying voters the right to decide other critical matters, such as whether or not they want charter schools in their districts.
“On the other hand, Moses, while going for the monogamous and heretosexual option, married a Cushite woman, and found that the marriage was very unacceptable to, at the very least, his sister Miriam, who began to gossip viciously about the arrangement.”
Monogamous? And Zippora?
Good point, ROC, he in fact did have two wives. What a stud, that Moses.