"We Can't Wait:" CWA statement on marriage equality

by: Rosi Efthim

Thu Feb 02, 2012 at 03:33:03 PM EST

Our progressive union has long been on the leading edge of civil rights fights.  We marched alongside Martin Luther King in the fight for voting rights.  We stood up for the Equal Rights Amendment.  We were on the front lines for disability rights.  We have negotiated domestic partnership and civil union rights in our contracts.  

Marriage Equality is a Civil Rights issue, just as the right to organize and have a union is a civil rights issue.  

For too long, New Jersey has denied one of the most basic rights -- the right to marry the person you love -- to hundreds of thousands of its citizens.  To maintain the status quo, or allow the basic rights of a minority to be put at risk in a referendum, would mean continuing this fundamental injustice indefinitely.

While our members come from many diverse backgrounds, we are united in our belief that all loving and committed New Jersey residents should be free to marry the person they love.

We call on Trenton to enact marriage equality as quickly as possible.  We can't wait.