N.J. Senate Approves Bill Legalizing Same-Gender Marriage

The State Senate passed a bill legalizing same-gender marriage this afternoon by a vote of 24-16. Two republicans, Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) and Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington) voted yes on the bill. The bills passage elicited a round of applause from those in the audience wearing blue in support of the bill, which Gov. Chris Christie has promised to veto. Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Union), a co-sponsor, raised his arm in victory and said “Yes!”

Two Democrats, Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) and Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May), voted no.

The 24 votes in favor of the bill leaves supporters three votes short of the 27 votes they would need to override Christie’s veto.

The debate lasted less than an hour, with only Sen. Gerry Cardinale (R-Bergen) speaking against the bill.

The Assembly will take up the bill on Thursday. More in Star Ledger.

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Works out fine.
    1. bill is passed.
    2. Christie vetoes it.
    3. the 3 votes needed to override his veto magically appear.
    4. same-gender parties get what they wanted.
    5. Christie remains in good standing with his conservative base so he can run for president.

  2. This is such a degradation of moral society, its not even funny. With every law that is passed were we are FORCED to accept someone who is “born this way” – we are one step closer to Sodom and Gomorrah.

    whats going to stop groups from now using the same ludicrous “i was born like this” from not seeking legal protection for child-predators? i mean after all, they too were born like this, and it too is a deviated life-style from the norm.

  3. Mr. Conservative, you usually have very good points and arguments but this isn’t one of those times. Comparing child predators to same gender couples- really? How do same gender couples hurt anyone besides your sensibilities? They have been shown to be loving, productive members of society who do no harm to anyone. Child molesters prey on the most innocent of our society who have no way of protecting themselves. If you do not agree with the lifestyles that same gender couples lead then that’s your prerogative but please don’t try to criminalize someone for living differently than you. Next you’ll be comparing people who practice a different religion than you to serial killers- that’s how much sense your argument makes.

  4. Now you know why it is so important to vote REPUBLICAN only.

    ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

    (yes, two Republicans voted “yes”, Two Democrats voted “no”. But left unsaid in this article is that 22 out of 24 Democrats voted “yes”, and that 14 out of 16 Republicans voted “NO”.

    And that Republican Governor Christ Christie will veto this abomination.)

    VOTE REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN.

    There will be many who will say, “What is the big issue here? Live and let live!!!” The answer is that the end result of all this will be (down the road) that if your school discriminates against same-gender couples in any way, you will lose all funding, your nonprofit status, and you may even be prosecuted. Don’t believe me??? ObamaCare (which gives the federal govt and the President virtually unlimited power on anything that has to do with healthcare) has just announced that Catholic churches must provide abortion coverage to all employees, even if the Catholic churches believe that abortion is murder – TOO BAD. So our Prez doesn’t believe any more in freedom of religion, but rather requires Catholic churches to go against their religion and provide abortion coverage. The same will happen to Jewish schools and synogogues. We will have to provide abortion covergae and same-gender education and who knows what else. The federal government (run by liberals and progressives) refuses to just live and let us live.

    It’s going to happen.

    Unless you vote Republican.

  5. i think the democrates all of a sudden wanted to stick it to Christi. They know he has national aspirations and ‘think’ that this is a ‘big’ issue where they can get him in a corner. So they all of a sudden changed sides on the issue and got this approved so Christie can veto….

  6. And Christie threw it right back at the Democrats. He wants to let the voters decide. Suddenly, the Democrats don’t want the voters to decide, because they know that the voters may decide against.

    Go Christie Go!!!

  7. This is not forcing anyone to act in this deviant behavior.
    Once this law is passed- and it won’t change much; they already can have a civil union, hopefully they will all go away.
    The only ones keeping this in the news is the anti-same-gender marriage crowd.
    Let them pretend to be married and call themselves married. It won’t make a difference to anyone.

  8. Don’t get so excited. Don’t get all crazy over what is not in your hand. Learn to let go, and don’t tie yourself down to the country we are in galus in. We are not in control. We do what we can, and life goes on. Don’t fret. Don’t live in your self-made world of your own importance.

  9. For all you who think Christie has helped this state take a good look around. He has ruined education,taxes have not gone down,he is only looking to make a name for himself in the future. He is a person who has the attitude of my way or no way.

Comments are closed.