| As we enter 2007, New Jersey's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community is celebrating one of the great periods of civil rights progress in American history -- even as many other states struggle to fend off LGBTI civil-rights rollbacks. Since 2004, 14 laws advancing the rights of the LGBTI community have been enacted at the statewide and county levels: A statewide domestic partnership law, a subsequent expansion of the law, still further expansions in 10 counties, a statewide transgender equality law, and most recently a statewide civil rights law that gives New Jersey the second strongest protections for same-sex couples in the nation.
No one would dispute that New Jersey is uniquely fertile ground for civil rights progress, no matter the efforts of our state's progressive organizations. By the same token, these organizations have been savvy enough to take advantage of the climate, making our march toward equality move that much faster. Blue Jersey, Lambda Legal, NJLGC, the ACLU, GRAANJ, New Jersey for Democracy, BlueWave, New Jersey Stonewall Democrats and the GLBT Rights Committee of the New Jersey Bar Association, all partnering with Garden State Equality and other organizations, have led the historic march.
That said, when the New Jersey Supreme Court handed down its decision on October 25th, many of us privately acknowledged how difficult it would be to win marriage equality within 180 days. Legislative leaders didn't want history to happen so soon, unfortunately. But as the weeks unfolded, it became clear we could win marriage equality legislation within the next two years or less. Every legislative leader in the Assembly and state Senate wound up endorsing marriage for same-sex couples. At the committee hearings and during floor debate on civil unions, key leaders said marriage equality was a matter of when, not if. Support for marriage equality legislation quadrupled within a few weeks, an unheard-of pace.
Activists, including the Blue Jersey community and the aforementioned civil rights organizations, helped to make all that possible. Because activists fought the good fight -- no, the great fight -- during the immediate post-Supreme Court period, the timing for marriage equality in New Jersey has hastened dramatically. Two years or less from now is no pipe dream.
As we activists fought for marriage equality after the Supreme Court decision, we tried to be both visionary and practical. On the one hand, we shouted from the rooftops that civil unions are separate, unequal, discriminatory and do not work in the real world. We'll continue to shout that -- it's simply true. On the other hand, behind the scenes we entered negotiations with legislative leaders and their staff to make the civil unions bill as strong as possible. The timing for negotiations was tricky: By talking with power brokers about how to improve the civil unions bill, we didn't want to send a signal that civil unions were acceptable. But once Thanksgiving passed and civil unions hearings were on the schedule, we initiated negotiations with legislators and dove into them with vigor. This, even as we continued our relentless public campaign that generated more than 300,000 e-mails, postcards and phone calls to legislators exhorting them to pass real marriage equality.
Every time we turned up the heat for marriage equality, though we knew the odds were against us, we found our hand in civil unions negotiations was strengthened. Far from pushing power brokers away from the figurative bargaining table, the grassroots campaign made them more receptive.
For starters, legislators accepted Garden State Equality's proposal to include in the law a government commission that will examine how civil unions in New Jersey fall short of marriage equality in providing equality to same-sex couples. It's unprecedented in the national marriage-equality movement: We got built into the law a mechanism that codifies a continuation of our movement for marriage equality. Even better, the commission will issue public reports every six months, far more often than government commissions usually report.
All told, we proposed 20 changes and additions to the civil unions bill. Nineteen of the 20 changes and additions made it into law, including the all-important elimination of language that directly or indirectly defines or describes marriage as between a man and a woman. New Jersey thus became the first state in the country to enact a civil unions law, unlike Vermont and Connecticut, without any quid pro quo ban on marriage equality. That's another boon to our campaign for achieving marriage equality in the next two years or less.
Thus the civil unions bill went from putrid, as we publicly described the early version, to evolving into the best civil unions law in the country, even including an engine for achieving marriage equality soon. We were practical enough, once we got the best bill possible, to nuance our public position. By the time of the legislative committee hearings, we did not oppose the civil unions bill outright, despite being pressed to do so from several quarters. During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, pro-marriage-equality Senator Bob Martin publicly asked me whether he should vote against the civil unions bill. I responded that the civil unions bill was a significant step forward.
So what was the 20th change to the bill, the one we didn't get? We wanted same-sex couples to be called spouses throughout the bill. We didn't quite achieve that. But we changed the language from the cold, impersonal "parties to a civil union" to "civil union couples." And here's a little secret: "Spouses" is sprinkled in the bill, too.
From our vantage point, activism is about holding a carrot in one hand, and a stick in the other. About generating passion in the streets and about being practical in the lobbies. We don't believe it is mutually exclusive to take a hard-line strategy to engage thousands of New Jerseyans to pressure legislators for 100 percent equality, on the one hand, while negotiating to get the best possible legislation we can, on the other hand. All are the tools of an activist. As some of our distinguished colleagues in activism exhorted us to be practical, that's exactly what was happening behind the scenes.
Practicality, of course, means not merely making demands of our public officials, but also giving back to them. In both the 2005 and 2006 elections, Garden State Equality produced a comprehensive get-out-the-vote operation for progressive candidates across the state, almost all Democrats. Our volunteers staffed 20 campaign field offices in every part of New Jersey. We have also contributed thousands of dollars to pro-equality candidates, again almost all Democrats, including through two Garden State Equality statewide galas for the express purpose of supporting our legislative friends. We know the importance of saying thank you beyond just saying it.
To be sure, people and organizations have different strategies, all of which have met with great success. Not only did legions of activists work successfully together to produce the country's strongest civil unions law, and not only is New Jersey is the best position in America to achieve marriage equality through legislation, but other strategies have worked equallly well. The relentless crusades for Laurel Hester and "Cher," in which Blue Jersey was our cherished coleader, respectively led to 10 counties strengthening their LGBTI rights laws and to the legislature passing a transgender equality law. In the weeks before "Cher-nobyl," legislators had told us the transgender bill was dead in the water for the time being.
In December, the bill passed the legislature by 69 to 5 in the Senate and 32 to 3 in the Assembly, the largest margins in American history by which a state legislature has passed a transgender equality law. As Cher herself would sing, Believe.
Throughout civil rights history, for that matter, activists have won civil rights progress when they had the chutzpah to ask for more, not less. New Jersey did not enact a domestic partnership law in 2004 because activists sought merely domestic partnership. It was because activists insisted on marriage equality.
New Jersey did not expand the domestic partnership law in January 2006 because activists sought merely that expansion. It was because activists insisted on marriage equality.
New Jersey did not enact a civil unions law in December 2006 because activists sought merely a civil unions law. It was because activists insisted on marriage equality.
And New Jersey did not enact the strongest possible civil unions law, one just short of marriage, because activists sought merely the strongest possible civil unions law. It was because activists insisted on marriage equality.
Now watch New Jersey's progressive activists, LGBTI and straight alike, win marriage equality within the next two years or less.
As Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Winston Churchill, it's fun to be in the same decade with you. |
