This is how democracy is supposed to work, right? Post the bill, debate it and vote on it so everyone in the state of New Jersey can see where each of our 40 state Senators stand on the marriage equality issue. There is a good chance, unfortunately, that it will fail, but it will “out” those who refuse to see this as an issue of civil rights.
Tag: gay rights
Marriage equality clears the first hurdle
The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to release the marriage equality bill to the full Senate by a 7-6 vote. Sen. Bill Baroni, a Republican who represents Middlesex and Mercer counties, stayed true to his word and voted to support the bill, which would grant same-sex couples the right to marry but grant religious groups an exemption from being forced to recognized or perform the marriages.
Voting against the bill were the committee’s other four Republicans — including Jennifer Beck, who represents parts of Monmouth and Mercer counties — and two Democrats, the committee chairman, Paul Sarlo, and its vice chairman, John Girgenti.
The religious objections, understandable if left to the religious realm, are inappropriate within a secular context. The Catholic Church — and other religious groups — want to imprint their religious philosophy (or in the case of the church, only a portion of its philosophy, with it weighing in loudly only on abortion and homosexuality, but not the death penalty or poverty issues), which is a violation of the religious rights of other denominations and the secular.
The legislation sponsored in the Senate by Loretta Weinberg and several others and in the Assembly by Reed Gusciora and several others protects the rights of the religious and the rights of same-sex couples and should have been supported by every member of the committee.
Dispatches: Faith in commitment for gay couples
Dispatches went up yesterday — a discussion of the Episcopal Church’s slow, but expanding inclusion of gay and lesbians in all aspects of the church. Discuss.
Replace "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," with "it’s none of our business"
Memo to President Barack Obama: If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is taking this position, there is no reason for you not to. You campaigned against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” call yourself an advocate for gay rights, and yet you’ve placed repeal on the backburner.
Reid, a somewhat cautious centrist, has now come out in favor of an immediate and permanent repeal of DADT. That should be your cue to force the issue sooner, rather than later.
As for former President Bill Clinton’s new-found support for same-sex marriage — professed last week and reported today in The Nation — I have only this to say: Fantastic, but where were you when the Defense of Marriage Act passed? You remember DOMA? You signed it into law.
Maybe, now that you’ve had a change of heart, you can begin agitating on the issue and convince President Obama to push legislation repealing DOMA.
Don’t ask: Obama’s Bill Clinton moment
President Barack Obama has called himself a “fierce advocate” for gays and lesbians, but he has done little to advocate for gay rights since taking office in January. In fact, his choice of the Rev. Rick Warren, the evangelical and anti-gay pastor, to offer the invocation at his inauguration can be seen as a slap in the face to the gay community.
On two of the most publicized issues — gay marriage and gays in teh military — he has remained remarkably silent. His promise to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Clinton-era compromise that The New York Times says has “caused its own kind of damage to military readiness.”
Thousands of service members have been discharged from duty at a time when the military is stretched by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The loss of highly skilled interpreters and intelligence analysts has been especially damaging.
He has gone so far as to have his adminstration argue on behalf of a policy he has publicly denounced — a manuever that would make Bill Clinton blush.
The best hope for overturning the policy, therefore, is Congress, where there is legislation pending.
Here is Rush Holt, D-NJ, the Congressman who represents much of Central Jersey and is cosponsoring the bill, on Rachel Maddow the other night, talking about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:
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Holt can be cautious and I think he held his tongue some in this interview, but he also made it clear that we can no longer wait. It’s 2009, after all, and the fact that there are public institutions off-limits to gays and lesbians is morally indefensible.
Hank Kalet 