N.J. Senate Judiciary Committee approves gay marriage bill

I wonder what sort of fundie smackdown awaits the garden state. At least we don't live in Uganda!

The invetiable cries of the bigoted begin

Updated On: 12/7/09 at 11:23 PM

Holding out hope for Thursday. I've already called my Senator (a sponsor of the bill) and thanked her for her support.

My boss heard the radio ads this morning calling bs on lame duck lawmakers trying to push this through. Christie has said he will "veto any such bill" that passes his desk. What the hell are we SUPPOSED to do?

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I just wrote to my legislators asking them to support this bill.

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ETA: Just got off the phone with Senator Baroni's office. He was the only Republication to vote "yes" so I was not only glad to see that he had voted yes but proud of him for standing against his party. They were very happy to hear from me and excited to be able to put my town on the list.
NJ Senator Contact Info

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Updated On: 12/8/09 at 12:38 PM

NJ gay marriage vote could shape battles ahead

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"Lame. This is like saying 'We'll give them the right to marry but allow people to still be prejudice'."

I disagree. Separating the religious from the civil is critical to success. The state shouldn't compel any religious organization to perform same-sex marriages. Trying to do so would doom the initiative.

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Eris, people have every right to be prejudiced. You cannot legislate away prejudice. You can make illegal certain actions stemming from prejudice, but people have the right to their own beliefs, regardless of how messed up they are.

And, and MB said, you cannot compel a church to perform a same-sex ceremony, the same way as you cannot compel the Catholic church to ordain female priests.

The 'moderate' conservatives like to point out that they are not against gay marriage but against the state involved in marriage which is strange because I guess they could fight to invalidate millions of heterosexual marriages that never took place in the church or never read the Full Faith and Credit Clause in the constitution that is what got their conservative brethren to put out DOMA to begin with. State and marriage licenses are just as connected as church and marriage as you need a license and you benefits (of course that is hampered for gay couples with DOMA).

Bloomberg shelled out much dough to NY Republicans in the state senate for his failed congestion pricing plan and continued to give money in his arbitrary 'bipartisan' standards. Basically Bloomberg funded the resistance.

Actually Roxy it was surprising given that hardly anything that goes into the state senate fails to pass. Duane thought he had votes from both sides of the aisle and basically he was betrayed. It must feel really great for him to know he has colleagues who treat him like a second-class citizen.

But really live in your proverbial whining over the state and taxes. You had your chance to vote out 'King Mike' but when there was a candidate who could have beatend him you passed up Thompson because he was too much of a 'big spending, TAX, TAX, TAX!' liberal. You once wrote that NYS was just like California. Um, no, I know for a fact it is not like California- the state workers are not being given furloughs months on end.

I agree many people should be voted out but this whole country operates on 'love my congresscritter, hate the congress' attitude. State-wise, no different.