NJ Lawmakers Set Marriage Equality As Legislative Priority

Garden State Equality, New Jersey's leading Lesbian and Gay political organization, announced that majority leaders in both houses of the New Jersey legislature have decided to fast-track passage of a marriage equality bill, A. 1 and S.1.

(Trenton, NJ, January 9, 2012) – Today New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and House Speaker Sheila Oliver announced that they will fast-track and prioritize legislation that would end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in New Jersey.  The announcement was made at a press conference today in which Freedom to Marry’s National Campaign Director Marc Solomon offered the  organization’s full support in helping secure passage of the law.

The below is an excerpt from Solomon’s remarks: 

“Freedom to Marry is proud to partner with Garden State Equality and New Jersey’s tremendous legislative leaders, Senate President Sweeney and House Speaker Oliver, as we work together to make New Jersey the next state to end the exclusion of gay couples from marriage.  What New Jersey’s legislative leaders are telling us clearly today is that the Garden State values its gay and lesbian citizens fully, and does not accept treating same-sex couples and their families as second class citizens, as it presently does with civil unions.  Marriage matters for same-sex couples and their families, both because it says we’re a family through thick and thin in a way that nothing else does, and because it provides a critical safety-net of protections that civil unions do not.”

Following the 2006 passage of civil union legislation, the 2008 New Jersey Civil Union Commission concluded there was “overwhelming evidence that civil unions will not be recognized by the general public as the equivalent of marriage in New Jersey with the passage of time.”  It recommended enacting marriage in its place.  

The House and Senate bills (respectively numbered A. 1 and S. 1) are expected to be taken up early this year.  The numbering of the bills reflects the importance which the legislative leaders are giving to the effort.

Interestingly, Republican Governor Chris Christie has repeatedly announced that he would veto any marriage equality bill that the legislature passed and even before he was sworn in, Governor-elect Christie was instrumental in preventing the passage of a marriage equality bill in a lame duck session which Governor Jon Corzine would have signed into law.

Another sign of the widespread support for marriage equality in the Garden State is that the entire 7-member Democratic congressional delegation sent a letter supporting marriage equality and urging fast passage of the pending legislation.

Hopefully 2012 will be the year New Jersey joins its neighboring state of New York in enacting marriage equality. New Jersey has had a civil unions law since 2005.

Celebrity Friday: WA Gov Endorses Marriage Equality

Excellent news! Washington Governor Chris Gregoire announced this week that she will be introducing legislation to enact marriage equality in her state very soon.

Here's an excerpt from the video of the press conference where Governor Gregoire announced her endorsement of marriage equality:

GREGOIRE: Some say domestic partnerships are the same as marriage. That’s a version of the discriminatory, separate but equal argument of the past. For decades that argument was used to keep African Americans separate in schools, at their apartments, at drinking fountains. After all, the argument went, those separate places were just as good. But we, Americans knew, separate is not equal and finally the law caught up. 

[...]

We need to ask ourselves, how would it feel, how would it feel to be a child of a gay couple? How can we tell those children that their parents’ love is seen as unequal under Washington law and that their families are different? We must tell these children and their families that they’re every bit as equal and important as any other family in Washington state.

The Governor and Equal Rights Washington say they do not yet have the votes in the State Senate to pass the legislation but they expect to get them in the heavily Democratic body. After the Governor signs the legislation the heterosexual supremacists will almost definitely file a referendum to have a vote on the measure in 2012. Happily, Washington State advocates for LGBT equality are ready and experienced, having successfully defended the state's comprehensive domestic partnership law in a referendum in November 2009.

Congratulations to Washington!

Hat/tip to LGBT Think Progress

Major NH Newspaper Endorses Marriage Equality

The Concord Monitor published an editorial today ("Don't Tamper With Same-Sex Marriage Law") pointedly demolishing the ridiculous arguments that conservative Republicans in the state have been making to bolster their drive to legislatively repeal New Hampshire's marriage equality law despite the fact that vast majorities of state residents oppose their efforts in published polls.

• Marriage is between one man and one woman. This is more of a declaration than an actual argument. In fact, it's a declaration of bigotry. After all, who gets to define marriage? Those already married? Without a compelling reason to deny marriage to gay people, a statement like this is hard to take seriously.

• But marriage has been restricted to heterosexuals for thousands of years. Many traditions outlive their usefulness. Slavery was an ancient practice too, after all. So was barring women from participation in politics. Once upon a time, people with disabilities were routinely locked away in institutions. Mercifully, times change.

• Marriage is for procreation. In many cases, yes. But infertile, straight couples marry all the time. So do those uninterested in having kids. Those past their child-bearing years aren't forced to divorce. Having children isn't the only thing that brings couples together.

• Same-sex couples don't do as good a job raising children. There are all sorts of good parents and, alas, a wide variety of bad ones, too. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. Nor is there a legislative push to ban other sorts of truly bad parents - child molesters, bank robbers - from marrying. No doubt each of New Hampshire's 424 legislators has among his or her constituents gay couples raising children just fine. Examples that disprove this worry are easy to find.

• Same-sex marriage will start us down a slippery slope toward legalized polygamy and incest. No sign of this so far - in New Hampshire or in the places where gay marriage has a longer history. This is simply a scare tactic. In the off chance that they are actually presented with legislation proposing such notions, lawmakers could simply vote no.

• Gay relationships are immoral. Some religions do preach that. But lawmakers must represent all their constituents, not just those who share their religious beliefs. And they must not impose their own religious beliefs on their constituents. Freedom from religion is just as important as the freedom of religion.

• Same-sex marriage threatens the institution of marriage. In fact, encouraging marriage simply . . . encourages marriage. Hard to see how the gay marriage next-door threatens the straight marriage under your roof. Hard to imagine that the legalization of gay marriage is dissuading straight people from getting married or encouraging them to split up.

It should be fascinating that the two states to vote in the Presidential primary (New Hampshire and Iowa) both already have marriage equality. Hopefully this fact and the Republican candidates and the mainstream media will intersect at some point.

Hat/tip to TowleRoad.

Santorum Would Annul All U.S. Same-Sex Marriages

Rick Santorum, the ex-Senator from Pennsylvania who is one of the biggest religious-based homophobes now running for President (although that is a hotly contested title!) made news over the weekend for two reasons: he has surprisingly surged into the Top 3 in polls for tomorrow's Iowa caucuses and he said that he thinks that all same-sex marriages in the United States should be invalid.

I don't really care about the first item (I am confident that President Obama will be re-elected for a second term in November) but the second item needs further attention.

Here is what Santorum said exactly (to MSNBC's Chuck Todd):

SANTORUM: I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law…

TODD: What would you do with same-sex couples who got married? Would you make them get divorced?

SANTORUM: Well, their marriage would be invalid. I think if the constitution says “marriage is this,” then people whose marriage is not consistent with the constitution… I’d love to think there’s another way of doing it.

This statement demonstrates an astonishing ignorance and misunderstanding of federal law and marriage law, especially for a former United States Senator. Then, again, there's a reason why Santorum has been declared (by a fellow Republican who served as Senator John McCain's top aide for decade) as the dumbest United States Senator of the last twenty years:

Ron Paul may be the wackiest candidate in the GOP field. But for pure, blind stupidity nobody beats Santorum. In my 20 years in the Senate, I never met a dumber member, which he reminded me of today.

There are many reasons why Santorum's statement is so stupid but I will just list a few here

1. There is no precedent for invalidating any legal contract which was legal when it was entered into (i.e. even when Proposition 8 passed preventing any future marriages all the previous marriages entered into before its enactment are still legal and recognized in California).
2. The regulation of marriage IS a state issue and has been that way for centuries in this country; it is precisely that history (as well as the clearly defined animus against homosexuality that the law represents) which makes the so-called Defense of Marriage Act so constitutionally dubious, and this legal point will probably be settled within the current calendar year when the 9th and 1st U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal finally issue rulings on the matter.
3. The only way to "have one marriage law" would be to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution and there is absolutely no way that there are 2/3rds majorities in both houses to destroy the marriage rights of fellow U.S. citizens in the 6 states (and District of Columbia) where it is now legal.

This is really about Rick Santorum trying to burnish his heterosexual supremacist credentials with Iowa Republican caucus-goers. There is no way that he would ever be in the position to be able to enact his theocratic version of law into reality.

Civil Unions Go Into Effect In Hawaii and Delaware

Today is January 1st, 2012, the first day of the year. Typically, legislation enacted during the previous years often goes into effect on January 1st of the next year. Today, civil unions become legal in Hawaii and Delaware.

Marriage equality is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa, New York and the District of Columbia.