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发帖数: 19713 | 1 New Jersey Assembly Panel Advances Gay Marriage Bill
By Julie Bolcer
NEW JERSEY STATE HOUSE (SCOTT MCPHERSON) | ADVOCATE.COM
The New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee approved the marriage equality
bill in a vote Thursday afternoon, promising to escalate the standoff
between Democratic lawmakers and Republican governor Chris Christie, who has
vowed to veto the legislation.
In its first-ever hearing in the Assembly, the Marriage Equality and
Religious Exemption Act bill passed the panel Thursday afternoon in an 5-2
party line vote, moving one significant step closer to reaching the desk of
Governor Chris Christie, who has promised to veto the legislation and wants
lawmakers to put the issue to a referendum.
The bill now moves to a floor vote, with the earliest possible date being
February 16, according to a spokesman for Assembly speaker Sheila Oliver, a
cosponsor of the measure. The Senate, which approved the bill last week in
an 8-4 party-line vote, is expected to vote on the bill February 13. Leaders
in both houses believe they have enough votes to pass the bill, but it
remains unclear whether they can secure enough bipartisan support to
override the Republican governor’s pledged veto.
Senate president Stephen Sweeney, who has prioritized the marriage equality
bill this session, did not testify Thursday but issued a statement that
reiterated his opposition to a referendum. He urged the governor and
lawmakers to follow the latest example of Republican senators in Washington,
who voted for legislation that passed Wednesday night and put the state on
track to become the seventh with marriage equality.
"It's time for everyone, from the governor to the chattering observers, to
stop talking about a marriage equality referendum in terms of 'if.' There
will be no referendum on marriage equality in New Jersey, period,” said
Sweeney. “He and some of his colleagues could stand to learn from
Washington State, where yesterday the Senate passed marriage equality. They
did it with the votes of four Republican Senators who stood up for justice
and equality, rather than simply shrug off their responsibility as
legislators to act.”
Governor Christie said Thursday that he believed New Jersey voters would
approve marriage equality in a referendum. A recent Quinnipiac University
poll showed that voters support the move 52% to 42%.
"The polls that I’ve seen show that if this goes to the ballot, I lose,”
the governor said at a town hall, according to Bloomberg. “How much more
magnanimous could I be?”
During the Assembly hearing, dozens of lawmakers, advocates, family members
including the cousin of Tyler Clementi, and opponents of the bill testified
in three-minute remarks over more than six hours. As with the testimony in
the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, many supporters focused on the
inadequacies of the civil union law enacted in 2006, with arguments that
echoed the findings of a state commission report in 2009. Speakers said that
despite having one of the most advanced sets of LGBT rights legislation,
including an antibullying law described as the nation’s toughest, New
Jersey is falling behind six states including nearby New York, in addition
to Washington, D.C., which together make marriage equality available to 35
million Americans.
Assemblyman Timothy Eustace, a gay freshman lawmaker with a partner of 31
years, talked about losing their son to AIDS in 1990 with no legal status
for their family. More recently, he said, it was “humiliating and
embarrassing and frustrating” to explain their relationship to hospital
staff when his partner needed open-heart surgery. A former mayor of Maywood,
he said, “I had to explain to the people that I was performing those
ceremonies to that they had certain rights that I was not entitled to.” |
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