Supporters of a proposed New Jersey law that would allow men to “marry” men and women to “marry” women were gung ho going into November’s election.
Prospects looked good in the state Legislature, and Gov. Jon Corzine had promised to sign the “marriage equality” bill whether he was re-elected or not.
Everyone expected to see the Garden State’s civil-union law supplanted by a same-sex “marriage” bill by year’s end, and even after Corzine lost to Republican challenger Chris Christie Nov. 3, people still assumed the bill would get the signature of the lame-duck governor.
But when legislators returned to Trenton Nov. 23, many were not so sure, TThe New York Times reported today. “Several of the 23 Democrats [in the Senate] have expressed reservations about it,” the paper said.
The off-year voting that saw a same-sex “marriage” law rejected in Maine and the election of two Catholics who support many traditional values elected in New Jersey and Virginia seems still to be having reverberations.
“The push to legalize same-sex ‘marriage’ in [New Jersey] could become a casualty of the election results,” the Times said.
The paper reported that while supporters expect the bill to fare well in the General Assembly, Democrats in the Senate meeting to discuss the measure yesterday “did not schedule it for a vote because they appeared unable to muster the 21 votes needed to pass it.”
“Some Democratic legislative leaders — including the majority leader, Stephen Sweeney, who will become Senate president in January — have said that they view Governor Corzine’s loss as a gauge of the public’s unease with the troubled economy, and fear that voters might resent elected officials who appear distracted by social issues,” the paper reported. “He said he did not think this was the right time to enact the bill.
“Other Democrats worried that if they passed a same-sex-‘marriage’ bill while Mr. Corzine was on his way out of office, they might anger voters, energize Mr. Christie’s conservative base and alienate socially traditional Democrats.”