New Jersey is a microcosm of what has been happening with civil rights legislation for the LGBT community. It has been a lot of promises with no follow through, or even worse we have seen pledges, by those we've helped put in power, turn into actual work against our rights once the supposed progressives were safely elected. Yesterday, before the vote, the "NJ Star-Ledger Editorial Board" did a good editorial on the "political missteps" that made gay marriage a longshot in New Jersey:
How did this bill become such a long-shot in a state where most polls show solid support, and where the Democratic governor and leaders of both houses supported it? There’s been no shortage of political missteps.I will never stop believing the biggest reason the Catholic Church is so rabid about gay marriage is they want to divert attention away from that particular muscle their sexually repressed priests keep getting caught "flexing" with children. Making their big public campaign about "the gays" trying to get married is their attempt to get their parishioners to focus on something besides the huge Catholic Church's ongoing pedophilia problem.
Our timid governor refused to push this until after the election. Then, when Republican Chris Christie soundly beat him, the handful of Senate Republicans who privately promised to support gay marriage slithered away. Among that group, only Sen. Bill Baroni has stood his ground on principle.
Some Democrats, too, privately indicated support and backed away when the Catholic Church flexed its muscles.
Today, we have some very salient points from Steve Adubato, PhD about why Democrats should be ashamed. It is what fuels our anger and has smashed our belief we have a political party who actually stands for us. It is what drives us as a community to civil disobedience and to support the "Don't Ask Don't Give" campaign. From Adubato:
But, it's the Democrats who should be really ashamed. They are the bigger disgrace. Democrats, supposedly, are the party that stands for those who are our most vulnerable citizens: the poor, racial minorities, the elderly, and yes, those who are born gay and choose to live their lives like the rest of us who happen to be straight. Maybe, it's the word "marriage" that freaks some people out and scared so many Democrats into doing what they knew in their hearts was wrong-- which was to vote against this bill. But, these same Democrats have gladly accepted tremendous political support from the gay community. They've taken their money, their volunteers, their votes, but, in the end, after years of being in control of both legislative houses and the governorship, the Democrats failed in their moment of truth to deliver.What part of being less than a full citizen is so hard to understand in this country?
The Democrats owed this to the gay community, because the right of same sex couples to marry should have been a no brainer. All it would have done was grant the same legal rights the rest of us who are married have; and, don't let anyone tell you that the civil union law passed a few years ago gets the job done, because it doesn't. Same sex partners still don't have each others health benefits. Even if they've been together, have a joint bank account, own a home together, and parented a child, only "married" couples-- even if they’ve been together for two weeks-- share each others health benefits. Under the civil union law, many same sex partners still aren't able to make critical medical decisions involving their partner, often when it comes to a moment of life and death in a hospital. Only "married" couples have that right.
