Controversial Traditional Marriage Advocate Says Christie’s Supreme Court Nominee Lacks Judicial Temperment
Bob Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, sent an email blast this evening asking the recipients to contact New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and ask him to withdraw Chatham Mayor Bruce Harris, an African-American, openly gay Republican, as a nominee to the State Supreme Court.
Brown said the Harris nomination appeared to be failure a vetting, “not a deliberate backhand betrayal by New Jersey’s governor.”
The email, which directs readers to the organization’s website where they are prompted to send a pre-written email to Christie, reads as follows:
I need your help right now to stop Gov. Christie from making a horrible mistake-appointing a radically pro-gay marriage anti-Christian judge to the state supreme court.
Gov. 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.
Yet Gov. Christie’s proposed supreme court nominee Bruce Harris sent this email in 2009 to State Senator Joe Pennacchio urging him to vote for gay marriage:
“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.”
I hope that you consider my request that you re-evaluate your position and, if after viewing the videos, reading Governor Whitman’s letter and thinking again about this issue of civil rights you still oppose same-sex marriage on grounds other than religion I would appreciate it if you you’d explain your position to me. And, if the basis of your opposition is religious, then I suggest that you do what the US Constitution mandates-and that is to maintain a separation between the state and religion.”
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.
These are not the words of a judicial conservative, a man who believes in common sense, strict construction of the state constitution-the kind of judge Gov. Christie promised to appoint to the court.
How did this happen?
When Assemblyman Mike Carroll was sent a copy of that email by a reporter, he had one word in response: “Yikes.”
Gov. Christie’s nomination of Bruce Harris appears to be a result of a failure in the vetting process, not a deliberate backhanded backroom betrayal by New Jersey’s governor. If so, the Governor can and must honorably withdraw the nomination.
The next generation of GOP leadership on the national level have to understand: knowingly appointing radical anti-religious justices is unacceptable.
Please, right now, send Gov. Christie a message keep him from making a terrible mistake marring his record. Tell Christie: Withdraw the Bruce Harris nomination today. Protect our judiciary from radically unconservative judges with extremist views pushing gay marriage and equating Christianity with slavery.
In a widely published OpEd piece, Rob Eichmann, the GOP State Committeeman from Gloucester County, questioned why the the State Legislature’s Democratic leadership has made gay marriage their top priority of the year.
Assembly Minority Conference Leader Dave Rible says the Democrats putting the issue on the front burner is a “slap in the face to the guy on the unemployment line.”
Both men have a point.
Garden State Equality, the gay rights organization behind the push for same sex marriage, boasts of 86,000 members on its website. That makes them, they say, the largest civil rights organization in the state.
That 86,000 number is questionable.
Steve Goldstein, Chair and CEO of the GSE, told MMM that they consider any person who takes two affirmative actions for equality to be a member. How they track that, he wouldn’t say. I’m pretty sure they consider me a member. Goldstein was aware that I signed up for their email list this week. I told him that I noticed that shortly after I signed up that the the number changed from 85,000 to 86,000. “I promise you, Art, we’re not counting you as 1,000 members.”
Goldstein finally acknowledged, sort of, that the membership claim is based upon a combination of their email list of 70,000 plus the 17,200 facebook friends they have, less a fudge factor to eliminate overlaps. Given that there is a facebook plug in on the GSE page, the fudge factor should probably be more than 1,200.
Even if GSE’s membership numbers were accurate, they would be representing less that 1% of New Jersey’s population.
The number of same sex couples who have committed to each other in the form of civil unions is a more reliable indicator of just how big this “civil rights” problem is.
According to Daniel Emmer, spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, 5,790 couples have been joined in civil unions since 2007 when the legislation designating the unions become effective. That’s 11,580 people, statewide, that this issue impacts directly, if we generously assume that none of those unions have been dissolved by divorce. Do they call it divorce?
One might conclude that Goldstein’s political skills are remarkable. He has managed to make his small, be it 11,580 or 86,000 people, constituency’s concern the top priority of our state government during a time when our economy is anemic, municipal governments are making significant changes to balance their budgets and our urban schools are not educating their students. Unemployment and foreclosures are not our top priority. Another generation of minority students are not getting educated, and Steve Goldstein has managed to make same sex marriage the most important issue of the State Legislature.
Or has he?
Goldstein has been played by the Democrats before. Jon Corzine, while he was governor got Goldstein to agree to back off the same sex marriage issue during the 2008 presidential election cycle and the 2009 gubernatiorial election cycle. Corzine made passionate speeches before gay audiences about how important their rights were. He was blowing smoke.
Are the Democratic leaders of the legislature playing Goldstein again? I think they are.
The Democrats and their special interest donors want nothing to do with Governor Christie’s agenda for this year. They want to raise taxes, not lower them. They don’t want to reform education. They don’t want to reform the civil service system so that municipalities can lower their costs and taxes.
The Democrats don’t want Christie to be an effective spokesman for Mitt Romney, especially if Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination.
That’s what this is about for the Democratic leadership. Avoiding Christie’s agenda and changing the public conversation. It’s not about civil rights and benefits for Goldstein’s small constituency.
Whether or not it’s really about civil rights for Goldstein and GSE is another question which will be the subject of a future post.
Same sex marriage will not become law in New Jersey this year by way of legislation or referendum.
Governor Chris Christie assured the Marriage Equality and Religious Excemption Act will not become law when he announced that he will veto it. He was always going to veto it. Yet, his call to put the question on the ballot for the voters to decide assured that it will not pass in the legislature with a veto proof majority, if it passes at all. Legislators, from both parties who are in difficult positions personally and politically over the issue now have cover not to vote to pass the bill.
Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver assured the marriage equality question will not be on the ballot as a State constitutional amendment this fall. A constitutional amendment requires 60% approval in the legislature before it goes to the people in a referendum. Sweeney and Oliver have both said that they will not even allow the referendum question come before their chambers for a vote. They say its a civil rights issue that should not be subject to the whims of the majority. David Duke, the Klan and the Jim Crow south have been invoked in the heated rhetoric in response to Christie’s call for a referendum.
All the noble rhetoric on this issue, from both sides, is political theatrics. Presidential and gubernatorial political theatrics. It has been since 2008.
Governor Corzine asked the gay community not to push for marriage equality during the presidential election year of 2008 or the gubernatorial election year of 2009. Corzine couldn’t get it gay marriage passed in the lame duck legislative session of 2009. Had Corzine been reelected, a same sex marriage bill, without protections for the religious community included in the current bill, likely would have become law early in 2010.
Despite their holier-than-though rhetoric about civil rights, and despite Quinnipiac’s poll showing that a majority New Jersey voters favor same sex marriage, Sweeney and Oliver really oppose putting the question on the ballot this fall because they fear it will bring out conservative voters in large margins. They fear that New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes could be at stake and that the congressional delegation could be at risk. They remember what happened in California (of all places) and Ohio when gay marriage was on the ballot.
Christie remembers California and Ohio too. Once again the great compromiser as outmaneuvered the Democrats and made Steve Sweeney curse. He knows that Sweeney and Oliver would never let the question on the ballot, this year of all years. Yet by calling for a referendum, he has killed the legislation’s chances of passing with a veto proof majority, if at all.
It’s back to court, and to the confirmation hearings for Chrisite’s nominees for the State Supreme Court, for Steve Goldstein and Garden State Equality.
Or, if what the gay community really wants if equal rights and benefits, rather than changing the definition of marriage, Goldstein and GSE could put their considerable skill into making the civil union law work. Quinnipiac says 69% of New Jersey voters support the same sex civil union law. The problem has been that Goldstein and GSE don’t support it. That will be the subject of a follow up post.
The Marriage Equality and Religious Exceptions Act passed the New Jersey Senate Judiciary committee this afternoon on a partisan 8-4 vote. Democrats Nicholas Scutari, Nia Gill, Nellie Pou, Paul Sarlo, Brain Stack, Loretta Weinberg, and Joe Vitale voted for the bill. Republicans Kip Bateman, Michael Doherty, Joe Kyrillos and Kevin O’Toole voted no.
While at a Town Hall meeting in Bridgewater, Governor Chris Christie called for putting the question on the ballot in November. Back in Trenton, Senate President Stephen Sweeney quickly rejected Christie’s call for a referendum, calling it a civil rights issue that should be decided by the legislature, not the people.
Former Governor Jon Corzine’s Public Advocate, Richard Chen, said that Women’s Suffrage was on the New Jersey ballot in 1915 and was defeated, passing only in Ocean County.
We’ve been trained by the media to believe that same-sex attraction is biologically determined, that it is unchangeable and damaging to attempt to change it, that it has no correlation whatsoever with decreasing mental health, and that homosexual relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in every significant way, including stability. Therefore, homosexuality must be treated like other non-prejudicial differences, such as skin color. Science says so, or so we are told.
But does it really? In a word, no.
In a major article in the February 2012 issue of First Things, Stanton L. Jones—a professor of psychology at Wheaton College—provides a thorough review of the relevant scientific studies. While Jones acknowledges that there is a great deal science does not know about homosexuality, he concludes that sufficient studies have now been done to give the lie to all of the common assumptions listed in my opening paragraph.
To repeat the scientific literature would be to duplicate Jones’ efforts, so I’ll content myself with summarizing his findings. These are:
The best and most comprehensive studies available suggest that depression and substance abuse are 20 to 30 percent more prevalent among homosexuals. This is typically dismissed by the claim that it results from social stigma, but (in Jones’ words), “the possibility that the orientation and all it entails cuts against a fundamental, gender-based given of the human condition, thus creating distress, is not raised.” Tellingly, the percentages do not appear to drop in cultures which are deliberately gay-friendly.
Early claims that homosexuality is biologically determined were based on a theory of pregnancy which posited that the mother’s body increasingly reacted against male hormones with successive male children, thereby causing a higher percentage of younger brothers to be incompletely masculinized, and so to be homosexual. This thesis that homosexuals have a disproportionate number of older brothers has now been disproven.
Genetics is, of course, another area of research into homosexual biological determinism. But the latest and most comprehensive studies of twins and siblings show that heritability for homosexuality is relatively weak (no stronger than for other behavioral tendencies); further, there is no evidence to support the notion that these tendencies are not as modifiable as other tendencies (such as a tendency to watch a great deal of television, which appears also to be heritable).
In addition, there are many studies which correlate homosexuality with environmental factors such as broken families, absent fathers, older mothers, childhood sexual abuse, and even being born and living in urban settings.
Despite the uniform proclamation of the psychiatric establishment that homosexual orientation cannot change, no body of properly-conducted studies proves this contention. Jones himself has led studies of groups of persons who are trying to change their orientation, resulting in either a completely successful change in orientation (23%), or the ability to live chastely (30%), or at least a continuing effort with limited success (27%). Only 20% abandoned the effort and affirmed their homosexuality more strongly. Jones concludes that “homosexual orientation is…sometimes mutable.”
Conclusive evidence exists that committed relationships between homosexual men are 50% more likely to break up than heterosexual relationships. Between homosexual women, the dissolution rate is 167% higher than the heterosexual rate.
Professor Jones also raises in passing two issues which involve value judgments unprovable by science, and to which CatholicCulture.org has called attention on a number of previous occasions. The first is the issue of sexual identity. To claim that the fundamental sense of identity of the human person is based on their sexual attractions is not a scientific statement, but an overall personal judgment of a an incredibly complex and varied question which no scientific study could ever fully explore. Many people, probably most, have in fact reached a different conclusion, understanding themselves not as having identities determined by their feelings but rather “telic” identities, that is, identities determined by teleology—our natural understanding of the design, purposes and ends of the human person.
This brings us back to a fundamental point. For even if all the claims in the opening paragraph could be proved by science, they would tell us nothing about whether or not homosexuality is a disorder. Even if same-sex attraction were biologically determined and unchangeable, and even if the psychological health of homosexuals equaled that of heterosexuals in the ways measured, and even if homosexual relationships had the same durability as heterosexual relationships, we still would have no grounds to argue that same-sex attraction is a well-ordered human affectivity.
This is because we already know from teleology, from our perception of the very nature and purposes of things, that same-sex attraction is incapable of carrying the full range of goods appropriate to sexuality in the natural order. Thus same-sex attraction is identifiable as a disordered condition in and of itself, whether its cause lies in biology or elsewhere, or in a combination of things. Ultimately, one can claim homosexuality is well-ordered only by ruling out of court the most obvious and widely-accessible factors in the case, the ordinary factors of judgment about the nature and purpose of human sexuality, the factors that are available to all of us.
This is rather like claiming it is not a disorder to be born with only one leg because we do not know that the human person was designed or intended by God or nature to have two. Or, perhaps more to the point, it is like claiming a person suffering from bilumia is not suffering a disorder because we have no way of knowing whether eating constantly with no proportion to our need for food is a normal condition in human nature or not. In all such cases, to define the person down to a set of his own peculiar characteristics is to rob him of his full identity as a person, which is essential to his self-understanding, development, growth and maturity. A man with one leg has been prevented by a disorder from having two, but he will live as much as possible as if he had two legs. A woman with bulimia will know that the full measure of her personal identity is inhibited by a disorder, and she will strive to overcome it in order to be fully what she is called by God and/or nature to be.
It is essential to understand that such faulty judgments cannot be proved (or disproved) “scientifically” because they arise from a fundamentally human and personal way of knowing which science cannot (and does not seek to) utilize in its own tightly restricted purposes and methodologies. This manner of seeing things whole is natural to the human person (among formal mental disciplines, philosophy comes closest to it).
But it remains very important to know whether specific claims which can be addressed scientifically are true or false. Without ignoring the larger issues, Stanton Jones has done an exemplary job of answering this question, based on the full range of scientific studies available to us now.
A couple of weeks back, in between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, presidential contender Rick Santorum was subject to claims that he wanted to outlaw birth control.
During an interview with FoxNews’s Brett Baier, Santorum explained that as a Catholic he believed that birth control is wrong, but that he would not support his religious belief regarding birth control becoming law. With regard to birth control, Santorum is able to be both a political conservative and a religious conservative. The position is politically conservative, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, religious freedom and personal liberty. His choice to strictly follow the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding sex and procreation is religiously conservative.
Political conservatism and religious conservatism are not the same thing.
Actually, neither of them are “things.” They are abstractions. Philosophical constructs. Values. They are not things.
Political conservatism and religious conservatism are not the same distinction. Santorum demonstrated in his interview with Baier that, in the matter of birth control, he is both politically conservative and religiously conservative.
In a follow up Baier asked about marriage. Regarding marriage, Santorum’s religious conservatism trumps his political conservatism, it seems to me. The former Pennsylvania senator is able to think, to distinguish, between his political conservatism and religious conservatism, with regard to birth control, but homosexuality is too much of a sin for Santorum to distinguish between his religious convictions and the law of the land.
Why that is doesn’t really make sense to me.
The Catholic Church teaches that practicing birth control is a mortal sin. If a faithful heterosexual married couple bumps uglies with a barrier, physical or surgical, or with the use of a chemical, that prevents conception, they are going to hell if they die before they get to confession. If they bump the uglies in the wrong holes, like homosexuals do, and die before confessing, off to Lucifer they go for eternity. That’s OK with the politically conservative Santorum and many, many others.
If a faithful same sex couple bumps uglies in the wrong holes and die before going to confession, they are also going to hell, according to Catholic teaching. But while their queer souls are here on earth, in the United States of America, Santorum and many other religious conservatives want them to have different political rights and responsibilities than the heterosexual couple.
I don’t get how that is politically conservative. Why is same sex marriage different than birth control in the minds of Santorum and so many “conservatives?”
In the New Jersey’s 11th legislative district, which comprises much of Monmouth County, 6 of the 7 candidates vying for 3 seats, one in the Senate and two in the Assembly, have come out in favor of same sex marriage. Two of the candidates, Republicans Senator Jennifer Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini said they would break with their party and vote to override Governor Christie’s veto of a same sex marriage if given the opportunity.
Republican Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande has corrected the widely held perception that she would vote against gay marriage by saying only that she hasn’t publicly taken a position on the issue. She said her focus has been on fiscal issues and that she would need to study the civil union law before taking a stand on gay marriage.
Casagrande’s refusal to take a position on the politically expedient schedule of Garden State Equality has drawn criticism from her opponent Dan Jacobson and others. Jacobson said the issue has already been hotly debated and the issue should be simple.
Casagrande says it’s not so simple, “I haven’t seen a bill,” said Casagrande, “What about protections for religious institutions? If the issue is so simple, why did Steve Sweeney vote no and then change his mind later?”
The issue is not simple to me. I believe that all people should have equal rights under the law. I don’t believe that homosexuals are deviant or immoral. I believe homosexuals are the way God made them. I created an exercise to demonstrate that sexual orientation is not a choice almost three years ago. Check it outonly if you’re willing to be disturbed.
Yet, I understand those who are morally opposed to gay marriage. I understand the argument that marriage is an institution that was defined milleniums ago, before any government that currently exists on our planet was conceived. I understand the desire of those who live their lives dedicated to or in aspiration of those traditions not to have their marriages redefined by a legislative body with an approval rating below 30%.
I suspect those who think the issue is simple, pro or con, think their opposites are just wrong. I suspect many who think the issue is simple, pro or con, have little respect for and even have distain for those who disagree with them. I think that is wrong.
Listen to the show, it you care about the issue. It is an interesting and civil conversation between three smart people with differing views who found enough common ground that Lassiter suggested the three of us run for the legislature together.
The first 18 minutes of the show is Matt and I talking politics and a three minute break to fix some technical difficulties. Jay joins us at the 18:20 mark. In the last ten minutes of the show there is some good natured political sparring.
I hope that you are entertained and informed by the show, which was sponsored by Repatriot Radio.
Senator Jennifer Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini told representatives of Garden State Equality that they would vote to override a gubernatorial veto of a Same Sex Marriage bill, should such an opportunity come before them in the next legislature. The incumbent Republican legislators were being interviewed for GSE’s endorsement in the 11th legislative district election yesterday at Monmouth University.
Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, Beck and Angelini’s running mate, did not attend the interviews due to a family commitment. She spoke with GSE privately today. Casagrande has not yet taken a position on gay marriage.
Beck, who has previously voted against Marriage Equality in the Senate, was unabashed in her commitment to cast an override vote. Angelini, who has long supported same sex marriage rights, was reluctant say she would vote to override Governor Christie’s veto, but finally did so, according to sources who were in the room.
Garden State Equality’s President Steven Goldstein would not say if the women’s pledge would result in the organization’s endorsement. “Those commitments are being taken into consideration as we complete our evaluation process,” Goldstein said. He indicated that the endorsements would be forthcoming later this week.
Beck is competing with Freehold Township attorney Ray Santiago, the Democratic nominee for Senate. Both support same sex marriage.
Angelini and Casagrande are competing with Democrats Vin Gopal,Red Bank Councilwoman Kathy Horgan and Independent Dan Jacobson, all marriage equality advocates. Jacobson told GSE that they should endorse Angelini because she is the only Republican in the Assembly who has supported their cause.
Beck told MMM that gay marriage is one of the very few issues with which she differs with the governor, “I support him 99.99999%, but we differ on this issue.”
“We all believed that civil unions would provide equal rights,” said Beck, “but that has turned out not to be the case for many people. I was very conflicted over my Senate vote against marriage equality because I personally believe in it, yet I voted against the bill because I felt the majority of my district was against it. I believe the majority of my new district is more open minded and in favor of equal rights.”
Angelini has not responded to MMM’s call for comment. However, Beck said she understood her running mate’s reticence to pledge to override Christie’s veto. “It is not an easy decision. We all have great respect and admiration for Governor Christie, personally and politically. He is a great leader. ”
Beck also noted that the bill recently passed in New York giving same sex couples the right to marriage has stronger protections for religious institutions than the bill that came before the New Jersey legislature during the 2009-2010 lame duck session. Beck said she would only support a bill that had such protections.
A new PPP poll shows that a clear majority of New Jersey voters oppose gay marriage.
“Hang on a minute,” you say. “All the media reports I saw on that poll say that New Jersey supports gay marriage. Are you off your rocker, Murray?”
No, I’m not. I just read the entire press release sent out by the pollster. I found information in the very first paragraph that could lead a reasonable person – or at least an astute reporter – to conclude that this poll shows that most New Jerseyans do not support the recognition of gay marriage.
Here’s why. The poll asked two questions. The first question asked simply if “same-sex marriage should be legal or illegal?” And being a basically fair-minded lot, more New Jersey poll participants sided with making it legal by a not overly wide 47% to 42% margin.
However, the pollster followed that with a different question – one more reflective of the reality that exists in New Jersey right now. If the choice was between gay marriage, civil unions and no recognition at all, the public evenly splits between gay marriage (41%) and civil unions (40%).
If you add the group who choose civil unions to the 17% of those polled who oppose any kind of legal standing for same sex couples, you arrive at a sizable 57% who oppose gay marriage when civil unions are an option, as they are in New Jersey.
To its credit, the polling firm, Public Policy Polling, not only asked both questions butreported the results for both in the first paragraph of their press release. However, they presented this information under a headline claiming there is unequivocal public support for gay marriage in New Jersey. And they semantically underplayed the apparent contradiction in the two questions’ results.
Hmmm, I wonder if this Democratic polling firm may have an agenda? Fair enough. They did clearly show all the results of their poll, after all.
The real problem is that the media blithely went along with the storyline fed to them by the polling firm – even when contradictory evidence was put right in front of their eyes. See here, here (with a blatantly inaccurate headline claiming “even Republicans support same-sex marriage”), here (which bizarrely interprets 41% as a “majority” – no wonder we’re falling behind the rest of the world in math), and here.[Note that the text of at least one of these online articles – although not the headline – has been modified after I contacted reporters about this.]
Usually when a poll has contradictory information or the pollster has an agenda, a critical observer really has to do some work to uncover the red flags. That means reading deeply into the background information that a pollster is willing to provide, as one New Jersey columnist did recently (see the last two paragraphs). Many times you don’t even get this information to review (in which case, don’t report the poll at all!)
For this poll on gay marriage, though, the conflicting information was presented with a flashing neon sign. Yet, no reporter bothered to say, “How would I report these results if all I had was the question results without the pollster’s interpretation?” If they had, I bet the headlines would have been less clear-cut about where the public stands on this issue.
And that would have reflected the reality that public opinion on gay marriage is not clear-cut. As I wrote over a year ago, nearly a decade of polling on this subject in New Jersey and elsewhere shows that opinion on this issue is malleable. The current poll underscores this fact.
When Democrats in the poll were asked the up or down marriage question, 64% supported it. And when they were presented with the civil union option, a full 59% stood by their original position. Republicans were similarly steadfast – only 23% supported same sex marriage in the limited option question and a similar 20% said the same when civil unions were added to the equation (although it’s worth noting that most Republicans do in fact support civil unions).
Independents, on the other hand, were swayed by the context of the question. On the straight up or down marriage question they divided 46% for to 36% against. But when civil unions were given as an option, support for same sex marriage declined by a sizable 13 points to just 33%.
Bottom line: This poll provides clear evidence of the ‘softness” in public opinion on gay marriage in New Jersey. About 4-in-10 are solidly for it and 4-in-10 are solidly against it, but the remainder are liable to change their opinion. And with this changeable group rests the majority. Therefore, as the public debate on this issue resumes, public opinion will continue to shift.
Phyllis Siegal, 76, standing, and Connie Kopelov, 84, were the first of over 800 same sex couples married in Manhattan yesterday, the first day that same-sex marriages were sanctioned in New York, according to multiple news reports. The couple has been together for 23 years.
New York is issuing marriage licenses and performing ceremonies for couples who do not reside in the state, including states like New Jersey that do not recognise same sex marriages. Does that mean the couples are married when they are in New York but unmarried when they are in New Jersey?
Same sex marriage will not become law in New Jersey this year by way of legislation or referendum.