January, 09 2012, 12:01pm EDT
NJ Legislators to Fast-Track Freedom to Marry Bill
Today New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and House Speaker Sheila Oliver announced that they will fast-track and prioritize legislation that would end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in New Jersey. The announcement was made at a press conference today in which Freedom to Marry's National Campaign Director Marc Solomon offered the organization's full support in helping secure passage of the law.
NEW JERSEY
Today New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and House Speaker Sheila Oliver announced that they will fast-track and prioritize legislation that would end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in New Jersey. The announcement was made at a press conference today in which Freedom to Marry's National Campaign Director Marc Solomon offered the organization's full support in helping secure passage of the law.
The below is an excerpt from Solomon's remarks:
"Freedom to Marry is proud to partner with Garden State Equality and New Jersey's tremendous legislative leaders, Senate President Sweeney and House Speaker Oliver, as we work together to make New Jersey the next state to end the exclusion of gay couples from marriage. What New Jersey's legislative leaders are telling us clearly today is that the Garden State values its gay and lesbian citizens fully, and does not accept treating same-sex couples and their families as second class citizens, as it presently does with civil unions. Marriage matters for same-sex couples and their families, both because it says we're a family through thick and thin in a way that nothing else does, and because it provides a critical safety-net of protections that civil unions do not."
Following the 2006 passage of civil union legislation, the 2008 New Jersey Civil Union Commission concluded there was "overwhelming evidence that civil unions will not be recognized by the general public as the equivalent of marriage in New Jersey with the passage of time." It recommended enacting marriage in its place.
The House and Senate bills (respectively numbered A. 1 and S. 1) are expected to be taken up early this year. The numbering of the bills reflects the importance which the legislative leaders are giving to the effort.
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America's leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement.
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