Christie Vetoes Marriage Bill

Lambda Legal

"We are disappointed that Governor Christie did not do what is right for New Jersey families, but we are not discouraged," said Hayley Gorenberg, Lambda Legal Deputy Legal Director. "There are many roads to justice, and Governor Christie's veto is an unfortunate detour to marriage equality for New Jersey's same-sex couples and their families. We'll continue to make our case for equality with our plaintiffs in court. We also stand by our colleagues at Garden State Equality, working to gain support for a veto override in the legislature."

GLAAD

“Today, Governor Christie abandoned a majority of New Jersey voters, as well as the officials elected to represent them, who believe that every committed couple should be able to marry the person they love,” said Mike Thompson, Acting President of GLAAD. “As public support for marriage equality continues to grow, however, we are hopeful that the state legislature will continue its work to provide loving gay and lesbian couples with the vital protections that only marriage can afford.”

Freedom To Marry

By vetoing the bill that would ensure that all loving, committed New Jersey couples and their families can share in the freedom to marry, with all its protections and meaning, Governor Christie planted his feet firmly on the wrong side of history. Fortunately, his ‘no’ will not be America’s – or New Jersey’s – last word. It is simply an obstacle we overcome as we continue on the road to liberty and justice for all. Freedom to Marry will work steadily over the next months – and throughout the entire remainder of the legislative session, as necessary – supporting local families, leaders, and advocates as they make the case to their lawmakers and win the extra handful of votes needed to override the veto and do right by all families.

Garden State Equality On Chris Christie

Garden State Equality chair Steven Goldstein has issued a statement about Gov. Chris Christie and his impending veto of the marriage equality bill. An excerpt:

As I have said before, where we agree with them on the issues, Governor Christie and his Administration have treated us with warmth and responsiveness. Yes is yes, no is no, and we’ll get back to you means they get back to you faster than you thought, usually with invaluable help.

And that’s precisely why Governor Christie’s veto of the marriage equality bill will hurt so badly. We’re not naïve – we’ve always known he would veto the bill, and frankly, I was always a bit puzzled by the silly tea-leaf reading and phantasmagoric hopes that perhaps the Governor would look deep inside his heart and let the bill become law. Ridiculous. I know this Governor, and when he says he’ll do something, take him at his word, for better and here for worse.

It’s why I chose not to waste a breath in pleading with the Governor not to veto – and have put Garden State Equality immediately to work to achieve an override. The great news is, we have until the end of the legislative session, in January 2014, to do it.

That doesn’t obviate the pain of the Governor’s veto. Because I do know him, I also know he is not some anti-LGBT nut. He is no Rick Santorum. Frankly, I don’t think Chris Christie has an anti-gay bone in his body, however much I cannot say the same about his impending veto. His veto will be a brutally anti-gay act, pure and simple.

Read the full statement.

Christie Blasted Over Whitney Tribute

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has ordered the state's flags lowered to mark the death of Whitney Houston, who was born and raised in Newark. Cue the wingnuts.

Heather Clause, a Richmond, Va.-based blogger who writes about teen moms and was tweeting critical comments, said in a telephone interview that she was appalled by the planned flag-lowering. "It's just such a bad example for people," she said. Clause, 23, said the decision was like saying if someone sings well, drug use doesn't matter and "you can still be an idol." Rebecca Eppelmann, a newspaper copy editor in upstate New York, also tweeted her disgust at the Houston honor, then discussed her views. "It should be for major events," she said. "It's horrible that she passed away. It's not something that should warrant this."

Christie: "I am disturbed by people who believe that because her ultimate demise – and we don't know what is the cause of her death yet – but because of her history of substance abuse that somehow she's forfeited the good things that she did in her life. I just reject that on a human level."

RELATED: New York state legislators were also criticized for a resolution honoring Houston. Objections faded when it was pointed out that Houston donated her national anthem sales to 9/11's first responders.

Today In New Jersey

We need 54 Assembly votes to override Christie's veto. The New Jersey Senate vote to approve the bill on Monday with a 24 votes, three short of an override. After Christie's veto, the legislature has until January 2014 to get the needed override votes.

NOTE: NY Sen. Ruben Diaz, NOM, and other anti-gay groups plan to descend on Trenton today for a massive rally similar to the ones seen in Manhattan. Those events took place on the weekend so hopefully today's turnout will be small.

Gregoire's Letter To Christie

Igor Volsky reports that Christie has not bothered to respond. What a classy guy.

NJ Gov. Chris Christie: The Legislature Doesn't Have The Votes To Override

Christie says yesterday's vote in the state Senate was nothing more than "a good bunch of theater." The Assembly votes on Thursday.

NJ Senate Votes On Marriage Today

The New Jersey Senate will likely approve its marriage equality bill today.

The measure is expected to pass there today and also in the Assembly on Thursday. But that will be far from the end of the story. The state Senate voted against a similar measure in January 2010. Senate President Stephen Sweeney abstained on the bill then, but he's now one of the Legislature's leading advocates for same-sex matrimony. Gov. Chris Christie says he'll veto the bill if it comes to his desk, giving proponents nearly two years to try to muster enough votes to override it.

Two years to override? Can that be right?

NYT Denounces Christie's Veto Vow

From an editorial in the New York Times:

The advances for the freedom to marry in both Washington and California provide supporters of marriage equality critical momentum to build upon as the New Jersey State Legislature prepares to vote on the issue next week. A strong vote in favor of same-sex marriage in the state’s House and Senate would be a legislative achievement, and it would help set the stage to overriding a veto, as promised by Gov. Chris Christie. In light of the week’s good news from California and Washington, Mr. Christie’s vow to block the bill in New Jersey seems not only disgraceful, but against the tide of history.

A Map For Chris "Let Them Vote" Christie

He's since issued an insincere apology, but likely with Chris Christie in mind, today Buzzfeed's Matt Stopera posts several maps showing the state of civil rights before landmark court rulings and legislative decisions.

Christie Rants On Same-Sex Marriage

I referenced this quote yesterday, but today Think Progress has the video and the transcript.

New Jersey Marriage Bill Advances

After hours and hours of some of the most repulsively anti-gay testimony ever to spew from my speakers, New Jersey's marriage equality bill advanced out of committee by a vote of 5-2.

The legislation still faces votes in both houses of the Legislature, with the Senate vote set for Feb. 13. Republican Gov. Chris Christie has promised to veto the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act if it reaches his desk. Proponents touted the bill’s protections for religious organizations and affiliated groups that refuse to conduct a same-sex marriage as part of free exercise of religion, but that doesn’t address core religious concerns, said Rabbi Moshe Bressler, an Orthodox Jew from Lakewood. Bressler said state sanction of something other than marriages of one man and one woman would be an “attack on marriage and an attack on the family. “If you vote against the bill, it’s a vote for God. Voting for the bill, that’s not creating an environment to prosper,” Bressler said.

Towleroad point out this quote from Gov. Chris Christie: "The polls that I’ve seen show that if this goes to the ballot, I lose. How much more magnanimous could I be?"

Cristie Apologizes For Marriage Remarks

Last week civil rights activists went ballistic when Gov. Chris Christie said that blacks "would have been happy" to have their rights voted on and therefore so should gay people. Yesterday, he (sort of) apologized.

"I also recognize that my job, one of my jobs as Governor, is to clearly communicate to people what I’m thinking, every time I open my mouth. And I try to be very good about being very direct about what I say so that there’s no ambiguity but obviously when I was talking last week at the town hall meeting about the civil rights movement in the South, I wasn’t clear enough. I just wasn’t. And what I did was, by saying those things, I left them open to misinterpretation and obviously there are some folks out there whose feelings I hurt or sensibilities I offended. And I apologize for that, because that’s my job. My job is to clearly communicate all the time. And so to those folks out there who were somehow offended or concerned about the ambiguity in my statement, I apologize for that because very clearly what I was trying to say, I said yesterday at the press conference about 5 or 6 times."

Christie Loses The Guido Vote

Christie isn't actually running for anything, but if he was, Snooki would SO not be voting for him.

NOM To Chris Christie: Take Back Your Nomination Of That Anti-Christian Homo

In perhaps their most dishonest twisting of somebody's words yet, NOM is demanding that NJ Gov. Chris Christie withdraw the state Supreme Court nomination of Bruce Harris because he supposedly compared Christianity to slavery.

Chris Christie has been the hope of millions of Americans across the country looking for honest conservative leadership. Last week we asked you to thank Gov. Christie for saying he will follow through on his campaign promise to veto same-sex marriage. This week, we have urgent and terrible news to report—Gov. Chris Christie's nominee to the New Jersey Supreme Court is not only an outspoken advocate for gay marriage, he has extreme and hateful views equating traditional Christian views on sex and marriage with slavery. This kind of intemperate and extreme view should be totally unacceptable in a GOP judicial nominee.

Governor Christie says that Harris has promised to recuse himself when the same-sex marriage comes before the court, but even this unenforceable promise misses the bigger issue: a man who cannot tell the difference between supporting our traditional understanding of marriage and wanting to enslave a people lacks common sense and judicial temperament. And to suggest that legislators should ignore the views of religious constituents, that moral views grounded in the Bible are somehow illegitimate in the public square, seriously compounds the offense.

Here are Harris' actual words:

"When I hear someone say that they believe marriage is only between a man and a woman because that's the way it's always been, I think of the many "traditions" that deprived people of their civil rights for centuries: prohibitions on interracial marriage, slavery, (which is even provided for in the Bible), segregation, the subservience of women, to name just a few of these "traditions."

Christianists are permitted to compare gay people to alcoholics, to horse-fuckers, to child rapists. But saying that the Bible endorsed slavery, which is literally true? Off with that faggot's head!

All Former NJ Govs Support Marriage

All six of the living former governors of New Jersey support marriage equality.

Democrats Brendan Byrne and James Florio told NBC New York Monday they endorsed efforts in the Legislature to pass it. "I think the climate is right on a basis of civil rights," said Byrne, the oldest of the former Garden State governors. "I would ask that the Legislature pass it." Florio told NBC New York, "I have no difficulties with it." "There are already people living together, as good neighbors and good people and contributing to the economy of this state, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to continue with the blessing of marriage," Kean said. Former Govs. Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey are both on record as supporting gay marriage.

Current Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto same-sex marriage should it reach his desk.