Washington recently became the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage, and the law was quickly signed by Governor Chris Gregoire, who said: “It is a day historians will mark as a milestone for equal rights. A day when we did what was right, we did what was just, and we did what was fair.”
By contrast, although both houses of the New Jersey legislature approved their marriage equality bill decisively last week, their joint effort was promptly vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, just as he had promised to do. His claim: “This issue . . . should not be decided by 121 people in the Statehouse in Trenton.”
Advocates and legislators all over the country are motivated (or pressured, as the case may be) to turn their attention to the most compelling civil rights issue of our time, marriage equality. National polls are trending in favor; at least six polls in the past year have shown a majority of Americans in favor of same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage is now legal in seven states—Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington—and the District of Columbia (although it should be noted that the law in New Hampshire is under threat of repeal by a current legislative initiative). In addition, Illinois is now considering legalizing equality, and Maryland gives every indication of becoming an equality state soon, maybe as early as this week. [Maryland became the eighth state to pass marriage equality on Thursday, February 23. –rh]
What the Left-Coast Governor Chris fully understands and has made it her business to demonstrate in written law is that the freedom to marry is a civil, unalienable right. And what the Right-Coast Governor Chris fails miserably to understand is that civil rights are not up for a popular vote. The rights of the minority are not to be determined by a referendum, as if it were a new sports stadium.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868 (that’s 144 years ago) begs to differ with Governor Christie: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It was on the basis of this language that the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia (in 1967, 99 long years after the Fourteenth Amendment) threw over miscegenation (interracial marriage) laws once and for all, and asserted in the majority decision, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
Governor Chris Gregoire searched her conscience and her faith and arrived at the just conclusion that the freedom to marry is an unalienable right, and that to deny it to same-sex couples is a breach of their civil rights. After signing the new law in Washington, she tried to appeal to the other governor called Chris, explaining her process and urging him to do the right thing. Governor Gregoire will be up for re-election later this year, and, at least for leading the charge in the march to national marriage equality, she deserves another term.
But Governor Chris Christie is a perfect example of a politician who has campaigned and won votes on a platform of discrimination, hate, homophobia, and division. History is sure to prove that he is on the wrong side of it. If the voters of New Jersey fail to pass this dreaded referendum on marriage equality (we hope they will pass it, but note, the first time the vote for women was put to the popular vote in New Jersey—in 1915—it went down), the legislature will have the opportunity to override this wrong-headed veto, as many members have firmly vowed they plan to do. The deadline for the override is January 2014. But 2014 is a long time from now for same-sex couples who deserve the same legal protections as their heterosexual counterparts. And if Chris Christie gets his just deserts, he will have been booted from the governor’s mansion by then.
