I have an old friend in New Jersey who was engaged long before there was even a civil union option. The Garden State was due to vote on gay MARRIAGE this past Thursday, yet they pushed back the vote.
TJ was filling me in on the details over a nice little Facebook chat. I thought we could all learn a something from her story, and I've asked her to share with you...
Engaged in the Garden State
I'm pretty confident that most would say I’ve led a charmed life. Born and raised in a perfect little nook on the Jersey Shore (just north of the fist pumping and hair gel), I arrived from a definition nuclear family. My coming out story was about as close to a fairy tale as you’d expect. There were some small bumps along the way, but only because I didn’t know how to properly stand up for myself yet.
Fast forward to nine years and a handful of lesbian relationships later- we have a politically obsessed, civil rights on the brain, bitter and frustrated, open-endedly engaged, TG.
So what’s it like being gay and engaged in New Jersey?
My fiance, Sasha, is probably one of the most independent and opinionated people I know. Surprisingly, though, when it comes to politics she is a little apathetic. This works out pretty well for us. I do the research and form my opinions and then I rant them to her. Some of them stick and later on I hear her repeat them with conviction and I get all warm and fuzzy inside.
For a year or two we were happy to just be engaged. We got diamond rings for each other and talked about bits and pieces of what our wedding would be like. We continuously deflected all of the questions about setting the date with the reply of “we want to wait until its legal”. After a while, some bitterness set in and our responses began to get more and more negative. We’ve even watched (straight) friends get engaged after us and marry before us.
A couple of years ago, New Jersey made a peace offering by legalizing civil unions for same sex couples. We opted not to get one. To me, right from the get go it reeked of second class treatment. My thoughts were: If it is equal to a marriage, then why not call it a marriage? We all know that separate but equal doesn’t work, so I’ll save my Brown v. Board of Ed. rant for another time and place.
The NJ Civil Union Act was enacted in February of ‘07 and within a year the Civil Union Review Commission deemed it as a failure. One point for me. Still no marriage for me, though.
In the time since this failure was noted, a Same Sex Marriage Bill has been written and just this past week was given the go ahead by the Senate Judiciary Board to be pushed through to an official Senate vote. The vote was supposed to take place on Thursday, December 10th, but was postponed at the last minute. Sponsors of the bill believed that they didn’t have adequate vote support in the Senate for it to pass.
Next month, New Jersey will have a new, Republican governor, Chris Christie. Mr. Christie publicly opposes gay marriage and has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. Our lame duck governor, Jon Corzine, has on the other hand, vowed to sign the gay marriage bill when and if it lands on his desk. So here we are, with 2009 winding down and Governor Corzine’s reign coming to an end, lobbying our gay fannies off to get the NJ State Senators to understand that equality is essential all within the next 3 weeks. The alternative? Four more years of engagement. I think I’ll lobby.
