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Proponents of the bill picked up only one supporter, giving them 14 “yes” votes — far short of the 21 required. Five Senators didn’t show.
“It happened so quickly,” one senator was overheard saying.
Read today’s CLIFFVIEW PILOT editorial: Same-sex senators won’t approve same-sex marriage
Debate at the Statehouse in Trenton that lasted roughly an hour, concluding just in time for the 5 o’clock news.
Sen. Barbara Buono said civil unions have failed, and that lawmakers should “have the courage” to make a decision “in favor of liberty and justice for all.”
“I see it as much more than just making a good legal argument,” she said.
“It’s about restoring the dignity of our friends and family, our neighbors and our colleagues…. It’s about basic human fairness.
“We have an opportunity here today to correct an injustice. We should seize it.”
“Let these same-sex couples be a full participant in our state,” Sen. Nia Gill urged her colleagues.
Only decades ago, interracial marriage was illegal, Gill said. Not allowing same-sex marriage, she said, “is a violation of equal-protection laws.”
“Each of us in this chamber has a family member, if not ourselves, who has benefitted from others … standing up for civil rights at a time when it was not popular,” Gill said.
“There’s never been a civil right vote that’s been easy,” she said, “because we must act past our personal level of comfort.”
“As a descendant of slaves I’ve been taught all my life to stand up for what I believe in,” added Sen. Sandra D. Cunningham of Jersey City.
“Whether you personally agree with it or not, you have to stand up and support the people of this state,” she said. “Everyone has a right to fight for the kind of life that we all want….That is the American dream.”
Opponent Sen. John A. Girgenti urged a non-binding referendum, saying he was speaking on behalf of the “public conscience.”
The proposed measure “changes the fundamental definition of marriage in our state,” Girgenti said. “It is a major cultural change that needs to be digested by the public.”
Sen. Robert M. Gordon disagreed.
“Would there have been a Civil Rights of 1964 if sent directly to the people?” he asked. “I think not.”
Gordon, who voted in favor of the bill, quoted James Madison, who, he said, “understood that to protect the rights of minoritites, decisions have to be made in the Legislture.”
Madison warned of “the tyranny of the majority” and the necessity of a republic “to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part,” the senator said.
Sen. Sean T. Kean said people have told him he represents “the gayest district” in the state — 25 towns in the 11th District. He spoke of the gentrification of Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, thanks primarily to gays.
“They push the drug dealers out. Businesses thrive…. Certainly, society improves,” he said. “They’ve turned struggling neighborhoods into neighborhoods where people want to live….They deserve to have rights, things that the rest of us as Americans have.”
This was a set-up of sorts.
“Sometimes people just disagree with you,” said Kean, voting against the measure based on his religious and cultural beliefs.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Kean said. “Maybe in some future Legislature, people will point out my mistake.”
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