N.J. Assembly Panel Advances Marriage Bill

The New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee approved the marriage equality bill in a vote Thursday afternoon, promising to escalate the standoff between Democratic lawmakers and Republican governor Chris Christie, who has vowed to veto the legislation.

In its first-ever hearing in the Assembly, the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act bill passed the panel Thursday afternoon in an 5-2 party line vote, moving one significant step closer to reaching the desk of Governor Chris Christie, who has promised to veto the legislation and wants lawmakers to put the issue to a referendum.

The bill now moves to a floor vote, with the earliest possible date being February 16, according to a spokesman for Assembly speaker Sheila Oliver, a cosponsor of the measure. The Senate, which approved the bill last week in an 8-4 party-line vote, is expected to vote on the bill February 13. Leaders in both houses believe they have enough votes to pass the bill, but it remains unclear whether they can secure enough bipartisan support to override the Republican governor’s pledged veto.

Senate president Stephen Sweeney, who has prioritized the marriage equality bill this session, did not testify Thursday but issued a statement that reiterated his opposition to a referendum. He urged the governor and lawmakers to follow the latest example of Republican senators in Washington, who voted for legislation that passed Wednesday night and put the state on track to become the seventh with marriage equality.

"It's time for everyone, from the governor to the chattering observers, to stop talking about a marriage equality referendum in terms of 'if.' There will be no referendum on marriage equality in New Jersey, period,” said Sweeney. “He and some of his colleagues could stand to learn from Washington State, where yesterday the Senate passed marriage equality. They did it with the votes of four Republican Senators who stood up for justice and equality, rather than simply shrug off their responsibility as legislators to act.”

Governor Christie said Thursday that he believed New Jersey voters would approve marriage equality in a referendum. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed that voters support the move 52% to 42%. 

"The polls that I’ve seen show that if this goes to the ballot, I lose,” the governor said at a town hall, according to Bloomberg. “How much more magnanimous could I be?”

During the Assembly hearing, dozens of lawmakers, advocates, family members including the cousin of Tyler Clementi, and opponents of the bill testified in three-minute remarks over more than six hours. As with the testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, many supporters focused on the inadequacies of the civil union law enacted in 2006, with arguments that echoed the findings of a state commission report in 2009. Speakers said that despite having one of the most advanced sets of LGBT rights legislation, including an antibullying law described as the nation’s toughest, New Jersey is falling behind six states including nearby New York, in addition to Washington, D.C., which together make marriage equality available to 35 million Americans.

Assemblyman Timothy Eustace, a gay freshman lawmaker with a partner of 31 years, talked about losing their son to AIDS in 1990 with no legal status for their family. More recently, he said, it was “humiliating and embarrassing and frustrating” to explain their relationship to hospital staff when his partner needed open-heart surgery. A former mayor of Maywood, he said, “I had to explain to the people that I was performing those ceremonies to that they had certain rights that I was not entitled to.”