New Jersey Marriage Bill Advances

After hours and hours of some of the most repulsively anti-gay testimony ever to spew from my speakers, New Jersey's marriage equality bill advanced out of committee by a vote of 5-2.

The legislation still faces votes in both houses of the Legislature, with the Senate vote set for Feb. 13. Republican Gov. Chris Christie has promised to veto the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemption Act if it reaches his desk. Proponents touted the bill’s protections for religious organizations and affiliated groups that refuse to conduct a same-sex marriage as part of free exercise of religion, but that doesn’t address core religious concerns, said Rabbi Moshe Bressler, an Orthodox Jew from Lakewood. Bressler said state sanction of something other than marriages of one man and one woman would be an “attack on marriage and an attack on the family. “If you vote against the bill, it’s a vote for God. Voting for the bill, that’s not creating an environment to prosper,” Bressler said.

Towleroad point out this quote from Gov. Chris Christie: "The polls that I’ve seen show that if this goes to the ballot, I lose. How much more magnanimous could I be?"