The governor’s recent choice of a black gay person, living with his partner of more than 30 years, for the state Supreme Court, shows that the governor, when he wants to, can look beyond the bigotry that characterizes the so-called “social value” discourse in too many other states.
New Jersey, thankfully, is more forward looking than states like South Carolina, Mississippi and Utah, but the bigotry against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals remains.
Some people believe homosexuality is caused by biological factors. Some are just as adamant that it is a matter of choice. But in the final analysis, it just does not matter. If two unrelated mature, rational and loving individuals, of the same sex, are committed to each other, how does it harm society if they may marry each other?
It does not undermine heterosexual marriages (including mine), will not impact one iota on those opposite sex couples who wish to marry, will not increase divorces or harm families or children or religions in any way.
Some say the electorate should be able to vote on granting same sex couples the right to marry, but citizens did not get to vote on civil rights for black people or whether black and white people should be able to marry each other. And the founding father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, never put the contentious issue of freeing the slaves or of keeping slavery out of the western states to a popular vote despite the 300-year tradition of slavery in America and its existence in the Bible.
If the right to vote depended on the tyranny of the majority, women would never have gotten that right as they were denied it in New Jersey in 1915. The acts of legislatures, not the electorate, only granted them that civil right.
Marriage equality is not like sports betting. Citizens did not get to vote whether to create civil marriage, only the Legislature did. And the Legislature has the right to expand that civil right just as it created the original legal right. Yet, the governor now suddenly asks that the electorate be allowed to vote on the same sex marriage issue.
Should voters decide which of their neighbors deserve equal treatment under the law? Why should same sex couples be treated any differently when they only seek a civil, state provided right granted to others by an act of the Legislature?
Barry Fulmer
Freehold Township