The Marriage Train Has Left The Station

by: Juan Melli

Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 01:16:17 AM EST

Today, both houses of the legislature will vote to pass civil unions legislation, but the momentum for marriage equality is already there. Behind the scenes, legislators are shifting towards marriage equality. Many are finally realizing that we won't accept civil unions because they are discriminatory and just don't work in the real world.

Even as they prepare to vote on a civil unions bill that was rushed through in the hopes of putting the issue behind them, the bill's sponsors are all publicly acknowledging what 65% of New Jersey residents already believe - marriage equality is inevitable:

"My guess is that there are enough colleagues that I have where we can take this to the next step," said Senator Loretta Weinberg, a Teaneck Democrat who is the sponsor of the civil union bill. "Perhaps in the near future, though I can not say exactly when."

Senator Codey, who is likely the main reason this bill was rushed through in the first place, now publicly agrees:

"We don't see this at all as an end point," Jason Butkowski, a spokesman for Codey, told Gay City News on Tuesday, referring to the imminent enactment of the civil union bill. "We want to try out civil unions and look at the pros and cons for gay and lesbian couples. The senator has said all along that he personally supports marriage, but doesn't think there is sufficient support at this time. In no way is this an end point."

In fact, Senator Codey has not been saying all along that he supports marriage - not publicly anyway (A free t-shirt to the first person who can point to a newspaper article proving me wrong). This marks a huge shift. Senator Codey sees the inevitable and is already repositioning himself to be on the right side of history. Notice the common theme - everyone is talking about this as a "first step" and not the end. As more and more legislators figure that out, we can expect a lot more of them to "come out" for marriage, too.

Juan Melli :: The Marriage Train Has Left The Station

Tags: Civil Unions, marriage equality, (All Tags)

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The Marriage Train Has Left The Station | 8 comments

People, Get Ready .... (4.00 / 1)

ALL ABOARD, 100% MARRIAGE EQUALITY EXPRESS LEAVING TODAY ON TRACK ONE FOR TRENTON, NJ. I'll see you in the club car ...

It IS a remarkable piece of progress that in about a month the consciousnesses of so maany legislators could have been raised so far towards the heavens -- not high enough, alas, to finally stop the Civil Onion Local in its tracks, but more than enough for all aboard to see that civil onions are just a short spur leading to a dead head, and not the main line of 100% marriage equality.

Yeah, it's too bad we don't have the votes - ALL the votes -- today. But shutting up and going away assures us we won't have the votes tomorrow, either. Strangely enough, we want everything we desrve, as humans and as citizens. And NOW wouldn't be too soon.

So, from one gay man to everyone else, I say thank you -- to Reed Gusciora, to GSE, to the NJLGC, to everyone who called and wrote, and to BlueJersey especially for being a unique and much needed forum for progressive NJ politics, not to mention the ADS, those were spectacular, Juan -- and to every member of our state legislator that has kept their ears and their hearts open during this debate.

It wouldn't hurt my feeling a bit if civil onions went down to crashing defeat today, which, of course, IS still one of many possible outcomes ...

Though it is purely speculation on my part and I have no inside information as to whether or not side offers were made, and if so, then who offered what to whom, I am most pleased that (in my opinion!) Codey & Roberts offered up trans inclusion in the LAD and needle exchanges to deflect criticism of the civil onions bill. If that IS what happened, they clearly don't know Babs Casbah of the NJSD as well as they thought they did, and I hope Dick and Joe were sorely disappointed to discover that the communities of sexual minorities weren't willing to trade two good things for one bad thing.

Dick Codey is absolutely a very decent human being and a very fine politician. He proved this to my satisfaction at the time of the DP legislation. It was abolutely NO COINCIDENCE that he was in his office and took the call from the GSE volunteer the night of the GSE call-a-thon. Codey knew it was on, and he was in his office waiting to respond in person to whomever called (again, entirely speculation on my part but I would bet the ranch that I'm right on this one) because he is a stand-up guy who isn't afraid to defend his position or to give an ear to the other side.

He isn't a homophone, but he is old school Irish Catholic, a mind set I'm familiar with (oh, baby, am I!).

He is fighting an internal battle again a deep-seated culturally induced prejudice, and you don't just overcome those things instantenously. But he's getting there, because though finding sex in general to be icky is very Irish Catholic, being fiercely, irrationally in favor of freedom and fairness is also very, very Irish Catholic. Dick Codey is gonna get on that train, very, very soon.

by: denniscmcgrath @ Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 07:21:00 AM CST

by: you @ soon

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NYT Article (0.00 / 0)

From today's paper:

http://tinyurl.com/y...

Deals mostly with out of state recognition of civil onions vis a vis marriages.

Dennis, I do love your term "civil onion." Reminds me of the absurdity pointed out in articles printed in "The Onion."

Did you get your idea from them? At the very least, you shoud be working there or on the Daily Show. I have problems with who the Daily Show hires but heh, you're a white male, which would give you a head start.

by: SmartyJones @ Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 08:51:55 AM CST

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The mediorcre borrow ... (0.00 / 0)

... the great, steal.

I write my own material. And that's the story I'm sticking to.

by: denniscmcgrath @ Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 11:49:31 AM CST

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