Politics

Gay “Marriage” Fails in NJ Senate

This is good breaking news from New Jersey. Governor Corzine had promised to sign a bill legalizing gay “marriage,” but the bill failed in the Senate before it reached his desk.

“The state Senate rejected a same-sex marriage bill today, a major victory for opponents who contend that the measure would damage religious freedom and is not needed because the state already permits civil unions.”

New Jersey’s Star-Ledger has the rest of the story here.

7 Comments

  • Nathan

    I’m going to go out on a limb and post this here. I will go on record and say that I believe that there is only one form of relationship that is true marriage — a covenant made between a man, a woman and God Himself. Yet, I don’t agree that the failure of this bill is necessarily a good.

    First, gay marriage bans contradict the FREEDOM OF RELIGION.

    Protecting the rights of conscience and religious liberty AND AT THE SAME TIME confining civil marriage to a conservative Christian construct is silly.

    If a citizen’s conscience and religious practice allows him to marry the person of his own choosing without respect to gender, age, consanguinity, romance, physical interaction etc., what right do you have to preclude this? It seems that Christians will allow people to follow their non-Christian gods only into places that don’t offend their Christian sensibilities to a great degree. Sorry, that is not allowing religious liberty.

    Second, gay marriage bans contradict LOGIC.

    Excluded gays from marriage and then blaming them for not growing up and not settling down and not supporting society like married people do is crazy.

    Which is worse? A) Supporting two gay guys in a committed relationship which gives them a chance to thrive, to grow, to make a stable home, to act like and contribute to society similarly to a traditional marriage -OR- B) Not support gay people in those endeavors and leave them to languish creating more problems for themselves and society than what would occur if civil support were granted.

    Third, gay marriage bans are NOT FULLY SCRIPTURAL.

    Sure, gay unions aren’t marriage according to the Bible, but there are other marriages which are currently fully supported civilly which also aren’t marriage according to the Bible. I think to be scripturally consistent, you need to not only create laws that ban gays from marriage, but also ban divorced people from remarrying. Otherwise, you are picking and choosing which biblical rules to foist on everyone (probably to favor your own position in life.)

    Fourth, SEPARATE IS NEVER EQUAL.

  • Don Johnson

    Remarriage of divorced people is not a sin, considered by itself. Some might teach it is a sin, but that is because they misunderstand Jesus in this area.

  • Nathan

    One argues it’s a sin, another argues it isn’t. The argument is basically religious opinion — I DO realize that there is a correct version, BUT why does one side get to determine that for all?

    Banning gay marriage is legislating religious opinion.

    Plain and simple.

  • Nate

    Nathan:

    Your first argument (against the 1st amendment) would have to include an argument for polygamy since it was banned before homosexual marriage was even a consideration. What other conscience “marriage” ideas would have to be allowed? Multiple men/women… Parents/Children…

    Finally, this is not a Christian decision, it is a state legislation issue. Also, in all the states that have voted, homosexual marriage has failed. So either the state is majority Christian or others are voting against it as well.

  • Nathan

    So, the bigots and the Christians ban together against homosexuality — what does that mean?

    Calling for the inclusion of a partnership with participants who have certain characteristics different than currently allowed does not mean that I have to also include a NON-partnership. BUT, I personally don’t care who wants to marry whom and at what quantity. It’s up to the people involved.

    All I care about is what it means legally — is the rule enforceable with a reasonable amount of resources and does the law leave room for people to game the system. I can say that allowing for gay marriage doesn’t change the legal situation one iota. I’m not sure what allowing groups of people to gain marriage benefits would mean, but the rules surrounding that kind of agreement wouldn’t be a simple partnership — it would be something else.

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