Garden State Equality To Hold Membership Appreciation And Fund Raising Event in Red Bank

MEMBER APPRECIATION OPEN HOUSE!

THIS SUNDAY, February 19th from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, Garden State Equality will hold a free wine-and-cheese open house in centrally located Red Bank for all our members, including you, to show you our love and appreciation.  No RSVP necessary, and please bring whomever you’d like.

Location: Hip and Humble Home, 58 Broad Street, Red Bank. 

On Sunday, this incredibly cool home furnishings store will donate 25 percent of your purchases to Garden State Equality’s campaign to override Governor Christie’s veto of the marriage equality bill.

212 LGBT civil rights laws at the state, county and local levels in New Jersey our founding in 2004 — and now we’re one of only three states in American history to pass a marriage equality bill under a Governor hostile to marriage equality.  Those are your achievements, dear members.  We thank you with all our hearts, and we hope to see you Sunday.

• Tweet

Assembly Passes Gay Marriage Bill

NJ Supreme Court is end game for Same Sex Marriage Advocates

As expected, the New Jersey Assembly passed the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act today.  The vote was 42-33.  No Republican voted for the bill.  Two Cape May County Democrats, Nelson Albano and Matthew Milam voted NO, according to NJ.com

The bill passed the Senate last week and now heads to Governor Chris Christie for his expected veto.

Christie has called for the issue to be put to referendum this fall.  Senator Christopher “Kip” Bateman has proposed legislation authorizing the referendum.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney has said the referendum legislation will not make it to the Senate floor for a vote.

Christie has said the Democrats handling of the matter is political theater. He told Poltickernj,

“If they don’t put it on the ballot, you’ll know the whole thing was political theater,” Christie said. “I trust the people.”

However, same sex marrige advocates seem to think that legislative passage of the bill will make a difference in their efforts to get the New Jersey Supreme Court to impose same sex marriage in New Jersey regardless of Christie’s veto or whether or not there is a referendum.

In an email to his membership, Steven Goldstein, CEO of Garden State Equality, said,

… Meanwhile, Garden State Equality continues its lawsuit with Lambda Legal –
where courts will now see the legislative intent of marriage equality…

…         “Pursuing all roads to justice, Garden State Equality and seven-same sex couples will continue our lawsuit for marriage equality, where we are represented by Lambda Legal and the nationally renowned Gibbons law firm.  With this victory, the courts will see the legislature’s clear intent to replace the state’s failed civil union law with marriage equality.”

• Tweet

Have Civil Unions Worked?

Perhaps Not. Perhaps So. 

That is not the question the Assembly should be considering when deciding the fate of the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act

The heart of the argument for same sex marriage advocates is that civil unions have not worked in establishing the rights and benefits that married couples enjoy to same sex committed couples, as the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered.

The anecdotal evidence that the gay community has provided to “prove” that civil unions don’t work has been compelling enough to cause some state legislators to change their position on same sex marriage since the issue was voted on in the Senate in 2006.   Senator Shirley Turner voted YES for the marriage equality bill yesterday.  She told Politickernj,

“I was wrestling with this,” said Turner, who was the 24th”aye” vote. “I felt we could accomplish it with civil unions but from what I have been hearing from gays and lesbians, they have been telling me it was not working. They were not being treated as equals, and I don’t want anyone being treated unequally.”

Assemblyman Peter Barnes, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is a Catholic who was previously opposed to same sex marriage.  On February 2 he voted with his committee, 5-2, to move the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act to the full Assembly. 

Barnes said it was the job of legislators to “tackle the difficult issues, whether we agree or disagree,” and his Catholic faith had put him at odds with this issue.  Barnes told Politickernj,

“As a Catholic, as  I really struggled with this over the past (few) years,” he said. “Tradition has not always been good, and it has not always been fair. Tradition can’t control our vote.”

“I will absolutely be voting for this out of committee today, and I am absolutely leaning in favor of voting for this on the floor,” Barnes said. “The civil union is not working…I don’t think reasonable minds can even disagree on that.”

“The civil union is not working….I don’t think reasonable minds can even disagree on that.”

A reasoning mind, which is very different from a reasonable would want more than heart wrenching stories and anecdotes from advocates before concluding that “the civil union is not working.”

One could easily make a reasonable argument that the civil union has worked.  There were 5,790 civil unions registered from 2007 through 2011 and less than 20 civil rights complaints.  If judged only by those statistics, a reasonable mind would conclude that civil unions have worked extraordinarily well. 

But that is a reasonable conclusion, not a reasoning conclusion.

Patrick Murray, the Monmouth University pollster, blogged:

The New Jersey Supreme Court declared that the state must provide and protect identical legal rights for civilly joined same sex couples as it does for married heterosexual couples. Same sex marriage advocates argue this hasn’t happened in practice under the state’s civil union law.  They have provided witnesses who give compelling stories of instances when their rights were denied.  Opponents have argued these are isolated instances that can be corrected with improvements to existing law.

The researcher in me says there is a pretty easy way to determine this.  Take a random sample of same sex civil union couples and a matched sample of heterosexual couples married at the same time and survey them.  If the former group has had significantly more problems with health insurance, parental rights, having next of kin rights honored, etc. – then the argument that civil unions don’t meet the Court’s mandate would be strong.  If not, perhaps the incidents are isolated and modifications to the current bill are all that is needed.  This is something that should be examined honestly by our three governmental branches.

Murray’s methodology would bring far more reasoning to the debate than there has been to date.   Such a study would be examined honestly by our three governmental branches, if they were serious about the issue and not playing politics.  If Murray or another pollster could construct a poll that tested the veracity of the respondents while collecting the data, such a study would be very useful.

Yet, such a study would not resolve the issue. 

If the study concluded that civil unions are working, gay marriage advocates would emphasize other arguments, “separate but equal” perhaps, in their fight to have their relationships called marriages.

If the study concluded that civil unions are not working, the reasonable approach, the approach that gay marriage advocates are pushing and reasonable minds are falling for, would be to call the relationships marriages. 

A reasoning approach, assuming the objective is equal rights and benefits, would be to study why civil unions haven’t worked.  Assuming that the relationships will not continue to suffer the inequities conveyed in the anecdotal stories the legislative committees have relied upon as evidence that civil unions are not working is not reasonable or reasoning.  Changing the name of the relationships from civil unions to marriages will not be a panacea.

Civil unions were a completely new distinction in 2007.  Employers, hospitals and others who have “caused” the inequities or inconveniences that same sex couples have suffered did not know what civil unions were.  The forms that triage nurses used to admit patients into hospitals and the human resource personnel used to process employees did not have a box to check that said “civil union.”   There was one heart wrenching story of a New York doctor saying “What the heck is that?” to a partner of a trauma patient explaining his relationship as next of kin.  The doctor didn’t buy or understand that the partner was next of kin to his patient and the patient’s sister had to travel from Delaware to authorize “emergency” treatment.  There will likely be other doctors who say “What the heck?” when a partner says “I’m his husband” when arguing that he is authorized to approve treatment. 

Same sex couples argue that they shouldn’t have to carry official paperwork that explains and proves their relationship anymore than married couples should have to.  All it will take is one multi-million dollar suit involving a partner who lies about martial status to authorize treatment that goes wrong before hospitals require all couples, gay or straight, to produce there relationship certificates before treating incapacitated patients.

“Why haven’t civil unions worked?” if they haven’t, is both a reasonable and reasoning question that should be asked if the objective of the Legislature is to ensure that same sex couples have equal rights.   

There has been no effective method to ensure that civil unions work. 

Garden State Equality, the gay advocacy group leading the way to same sex marriage has not wanted civil unions to work.  They encourage their members to report discrimination to on their website.  They don’t encourage civil rights complaints to the authorities.   That explains why there is so much anecdotal evidence that civil unions don’t work and so few complaints.

Steve Goldstein, CEO of Garden State Equality, was Vice Chairman of the Civil Union Review Commission that concluded in 2008, one year after the civil union law became effective, that civil unions don’t work.  Goldstein’s participation on the commission was clearly a conflict, especially in light of his work to ensure that civil unions not work by using stories of discrimination to advance his same sex marriage agenda and by encouraging his members to report discrimination to Garden State Equality rather than the Division of Civil Rights.

The question for legislators in the Assembly considering the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act should not be “Have civil unions worked?”   Despite the reasonable evidence that they have worked—so few complaints with the Civil Right Division—there will be much work to do to ensure the civil rights of same sex couples even if their relationships are called marriages.

The question before members of the Assembly should be “What is marriage?”

• Tweet

Why the push for same sex marriage now?

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.

• Tweet

The immaturity of Caroline Casagrande

By Dan Jacobson, also published in the September 29, 2011 issue of the triCityNews

It’s well known that I’ll blast any politician for perpetrating all manners of bullshit. These are people who should know better.

But there’s a difference with Republican Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande. She likes to tout her status of one of the youngest members of the state legislature. And it’s suddenly showing.

It would be overkill to blast her. So I’ll go relatively easy. Quite frankly, I don’t know if she can take it.

For Casagrande is there by accident. Her Republican running mates in her old district – Senator Jennifer Beck and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon – carried her in. Same is likely true this year in her new district: she’s with Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini. No one knows Casagrande. Voters will likely just go down the Republican column like lemmings as they always do. What a way to run a country.

Obviously, the biggest challenges we face are economic. But even bigger is whether we’re going to continue to elect the same mediocre clowns who give us the same awful results. Our state’s massive economic mess will never be addressed until we start electing people with the maturity and seriousness to address them.

I’m running for one of the two Assembly seats as an Independent in the 11^th District. That makes me one of Casagrande’s opponents.

Here’s the problem. If a politician will bullshit you on any major issue, they could bullshit you on every major issue. To my surprise, Caroline Casagrande suddenly proved herself one of the bullshitters. That I can’t stand.

The controversy involves same-sex marriage, but the real problem is her sudden refusal to take a stand. That surprised everyone who thought she was opposed. (I favor marriage equality.) When asked last week by powerful Republican blogger Art Gallagher her position, Casagrande said she would not take one. Her initial reason? Too busy dealing with fiscal issues. Like anyone buys that.

With the redistricting earlier this year, Casagrande’s new district has a sizeable gay and lesbian population – as well as a group of conservative Republicans on the other side who oppose same-sex marriage. So Casagrande just ducks the issue. Why not? Most likely she’ll cruise to reelection without voters knowing any of this.

But I can’t stand a politician who won’t take a stand. That type of nonsense is what’s gotten us into our economic mess. And I can’t keep quiet when I see it. Like me, Casagrande has a big mouth – which is why I liked her – but I confused that with a mature self-confidence and independence that doesn’t exist.

In the end, all the Assemblywoman has got is a big mouth. At least I use mine to take a stand and take the heat.

Of course, Casagrande is welcome to equal time by taking this column for a week. She won’t. Why rock the boat? Why not just keep going to those friendly audiences and acting like a hero – and getting reelected by simply putting your name on the ballot? Wow, what a rewarding way to spend one’s life.

Then again, who the hell appointed me God?

So I’ll let you make the call. Below is how Republican blogger Gallagher reported Casagrande’s actions on his More Monmouth Musings site last week. I’ll also reprint what I posted on Art’s site in response.

This all exploded when the gay and lesbian advocacy group Garden State Equality asked the 11^th District candidates their position on same sex marriage – certainly a reasonable request if you’re seeking office.  Here’s Art Gallagher’s take:

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 (Democratic Senate President) Steve Sweeney vote no and then change his mind later?”

Here’s how I responded on Gallagher’s blog:

Respectfully, I’m not accepting Caroline Casagrande’s explanation. Her running mates have taken a stand. Everyone else in the 11th District race has taken a stand. Governor Christie has taken a stand. Steve Sweeney has taken a stand – after apologizing for initially taking a political stand on this moral issue. That’s why Sweeney reversed his position. Not because of its complexity…

As a supporter of same sex marriage, I should be praising Caroline for seeming to move off a position that most people thought she held. But I’m not. I’d rather have her just decisively say she opposes it than engage in this bullshit.

Because there’s a bigger principle here – whether someone has the maturity and seriousness to hold this office. Saying that you can’t take a stand on this bill because you’ve been busy with fiscal affairs, as Caroline said a couple days ago, is nonsense. And everyone knows it.

Marriage equality is a major issue, but it’s certainly not the biggest one facing voters. The biggest problems are economic. But even bigger than that is whether we are going to stop electing people who are just playing games. That’s my objection to what Caroline is saying.

That’s what she’s doing here. And it’s what makes me go ballistic about politicians.

I’m actually a bit stunned by Caroline’s gamesmanship. After all, last week I wrote that I’d likely vote for her if I wasn’t running because we seem to share similar economic views, even if I disagree – or at least I thought I disagreed – with her on social issues like abortion and same sex marriage.

My advice to Caroline is simple. Stop this nonsense. Take a position like everyone else is able to do. And let’s all move on, and forget this ever happened. Otherwise, your failure to take a stand will become a major issue in your new district.

And I assure you it will become a major issue between the two of us in my capacity as an editorialist and candidate. Sure, I will always generously give you equal time in an equally prominent place in my newspaper. But I would rather not have us in such an adversarial relationship. I don’t know how much friendlier and more respectfully I can put it.

Hey, what can I say?

After all, we’re the triCityNews. We’re here to help – especially a frankly immature elected official who needs to learn a lesson and cut the crap.

(The 11^th District where I’m running includes: Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank, Ocean Township, Neptune, Neptune City, Interlaken, Deal, Allenhurst, Loch Arbour, West Long Branch, Eatontown, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township, Tinton Falls, Colts Neck, Freehold Township and Freehold Borough.)

• Tweet

Casagrande’s Cowardice

By Olivia Nuzzi

As noted here, six of LD11’s seven legislative candidates have come out in support of gay marriage. They include Democratic Senate candidate Ray Santiago, Democratic Assembly candidates Vin Gopal and Kathy Horgan, and independent Assembly candidate Dan Jacobson. 

Also on the list are Republicans Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck and Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, both of whom pledged – Angelini after significant hesitation – on September 18th during an interview with Garden State Equality at Monmouth University, to override Governor Christie’s veto of a same sex marriage bill should the opportunity arise in the next legislature. 

Conveniently, Caroline Casagrande, Beck and Angelini’s running mate, could not attend the event at Monmouth because she was busy with a “family commitment.” I suspect her family committed to travel far, far away from anyone asking her about gay marriage, an issue she has refused to take a stance on.

One of the many jobs of a public figure is to know a thing or two about public relations. Everybody, public figure or otherwise, knows that “no comment” is, more or less, always a confirmation. Evidently, no one forwarded that memo to Caroline Casagrande who has adopted a strict policy of “Don’t Ask me about gay marriage and I won’t Tell You a bunch of evasive nonsense.” 

Her refusal – while inexcusable – is understandable, given that without question, there are a significant number of voters in newly formed LD11 who are not going to agree with, accept or respect a politician who opposes gay marriage. However, no one can respect a coward. A coward, as it stands now, is precisely what Caroline Casagrande is.

If you want to be a social conservative, go ahead and be one – your base will revere you for it, and your ideological enemies will have no choice but to respectfully disagree. 

Instead of taking a stand, Ms. Casagrande has skirted around the issue of gay marriage, going as far as to employ Senator Sweeney’s regrettable history as a cop-out. 

By asking the “tough” questions that anybody who knows anything about the fight for marriage equality already knows the answer to, she is doing the best she can to make this seem complicated. “What about protections for religious institutions?” she challenged, as if the Big Bad Gays are planning to storm into Sunday mass to force the congregation to Vogue in unison. 

Ms. Casagrande is attempting to slide under the radar. She is hoping that this massive insult to the intelligence of those that she hopes to represent goes unnoticed. In adopting dishonesty as her policy, she has succeeded in fooling no one, she has merely made a fool of herself. 

You could call her running mate, Senator Jennifer “Romney” Beck, many things (a lobbyist or a liar, for instance), but a cowardly ideologue she is not. Ms. Beck at least had the guts to flip-flop as soon as LGBT-supportive Asbury Park and Ocean Grove became her problem. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer the audacious displays of dishonesty to the panicked whispers… I’m a romantic, what can I say? 

Beyond embarrassing herself with her stunning lack of bravery and admission (however fabricated) that she cannot comprehend a simple issue, Ms. Ummmmm? also managed to miss an opportunity to follow the wide path of Declare and Defend set by her Messiah, Governor Christie. Aw shucks, what a shame.

We elect people who we believe possess the skills necessary to handle the many issues that NJ faces at once. If Ms. Casagrande can only handle one issue at a time, perhaps it is time for us to reevaluate her competence to serve. I say this only because I care about her well-being. After all, it would be cruel to continue to overwhelm her with the many complex legislative responsibilities that rest on her shoulders in Trenton. 

Olivia Nuzzi is a student from Middletown and an intern for the District 11 Democratic campaign.  MMM welcomes her fair and biased contributions. 

• Tweet

Beck, Angelini, Pledge Gay Marriage Support

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.

• Tweet