With the New Jersey state senate scheduled to take up a marriage vote on Thursday, an all-out effort to win hearts and minds now includes a stirring op-ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger written by the great-great-grandson of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Ulysses Dietz, the senior curator of the Newark Museum who has lived in New Jersey with his partner for nearly 30 years, writes, “I don’t want to be civil unioned. I want to be married.

“As an American; as a loyal, hardworking, tax-paying New Jerseyan; as a devout, churchgoing, tithing Christian with a secular Jewish spouse; as a father. I want my relationship with my children’s other parent to be acknowledged by everyone for what it is — a marriage. Anything less is just wrong. Anything less is unjust. Anything less is, truth be told, un-American."

On Monday the state judiciary committee narrowly voted to send a marriage bill to the floor for a vote. New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, who will leave office on January 19 after losing the November gubernatorial race to Republican Chris Christie, has promised to sign the bill (Christie opposes it).

Read Dietz’s full op-ed here.