A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows New Jersey voters narrowly oppose legalizing To’eiva marriage by a 49 to 46 margin. Earlier this month, a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll found narrow support for To’eiva matrimony. So did a Quinnipiac poll in April. The issue is pressing because Garden State lawmakers may consider legalizing To’eiva marriage before January 19. That’s when Republican Chris Christie will replace Democrat Jon Corzine as governor. Corzine says he’d sign a To’eiva marriage law, but Christie says he would veto it.
The survey of 1,615 voters conducted Nov. 17-22 had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 2 percentage points. AP
Politics is an interesting business. Many defied the gedolim and voted for Christie (whose Lt. Gov. introduced domestic partnership legislation in NJ in the first place, incidently) and now, Corzine, as a lame duck, has nothing to lose and is expending his remaining political capital in a push to legalize to’eiva marriage. The irony would be sweet if the reality weren’t so bitter…
#1.
Your “many defied the gedoim” line is a gross distortion of what actually happened.
I guess it also escapes you that if Corzine had won, he also would not have had to worry about facing the voters again (i.e., would have had nothing to lose).
Had Corzine won, he absolutely would have had ‘what to lose’ – do you think he didn’t have higher aspirations?? He’s closely tied to Obama and was the subject of much speculation for Secretary of the Treasury. There were also those who speculated that he would replace Biden on the 2012 ticket. That’s history now – he’s done. He’s now free to push a radical agenda that he never would have dreamed to push previously.
There were also those who speculated that he would replace Biden on the 2012 ticket.
Seems to me that it’s a really good thing that he was derailed at this point. Who would have wanted him persuing his agenda on a national level?
Oh right, he wouldn’t have done that because he would have had higher aspirations, President.
In the picture there are 2 children holding the sign up. what in the world are children doing protesting toeva marriage?? did their parents tell them what they are protesting about????
I take an offense at this Jews4Morality group that pretends to speak in the name of the Orthodox Jewish community. Definitely, they don’t speak for me…I am an Orthodox Jew and I oppose these silly protests. Jewish morality stands for much more than getting excited about abortion and ss agenda. What do they exactly want?
Do they want a 14 years old girl from Trenton, who never had a break in her life, to have a baby? How is this young mother, who is still in school, is going to take care of the baby? What are her chances of graduating high school and getting a decent job, while caring for a baby child? What kind of a person will this baby grow up to be with this baby mother?…I am not for aborting babies, but given the sad state of today’s society to have a law prohibiting abortion is highly immoral…
My main problem though, with these protests is that I think they are other much more important things to get excited about…There are millions of Jews in the US and around the world that don’t know what Shabbos means… They are many poor people in our community who are struggling to put food on the table…Then, you have a major problem of child abuse that also exists in our community…In my humble view, it would be highly ‘Jewishly immoral’ to ignore these issues and get excited about making sure that one ss partner will not get to visit his sick partner in the hospital…
Leib: Regarding your hypothetical 14 year old Trentonian, not only do they want her to have that baby, the *Torah* wants it as well – abortion is prohibited by the Torah even for nonJews.
anon 8:42: I guess you disagree with me…That’s fine. Btw, do you agree with the protestors that abortion is a form of infanticide?Because it’s not accordng to Judaism…
Leib: That’s where you are mistaken. While it is not infanticide for a Jew, it *is* infanticide for a nonJew.
anon 9:55: You write that abortion is infanticide for a non-Jew. What is your source for that?… And btw, how do you know that Torah wants the girl in my hypothetical to have a baby? The last time I checked, Torah or Gemorah doesn’t mention my hypothetical. Infanticide is killing of children, and if a Jew who kills a fetus is not guilty of infanticide presumably because the fetus doesn’t amount to human life, so too a non-Jew cannot be guilty of it. It’s illogical to suggest that fetus’ status depends on the religious identity of the attacker.
Leib:
See Sanhedrin 67b – the halacha is like R’ Yishmael there who clearly states that a non Jew is liable for killing a fetus (Rambam – Hilchos Melachim 9:4). The -only- question in the poskim is whether or not this is a capital offense.
So, yes, the Torah does take a position on your 14 year old Trentonian – it cetegorically forbids her from seeking an abortion.
Look anon, I am not disputing that Torah looks unfavorably, to say the least, on abortion by both Jews and non-Jews…My previous comment in short was that I am upset that some individuals, the Jews4morality types, chose to make the abortion and ss marriage into a number one issue, when there are other more important issues(in my view) in our community.
I supplied my example, the one you call a hypothetical, though before Roe v. Wade decision these occurences had been very common, to show that bringing back a legal prohibition on abortion is far from a perfect solution… Also, please note that according to halocha, the baby must be aborted if the mother’s life is in danger, the outcome unacceptable to the Christian pro-life advocates. I remember reading an article in Jewish Observer from early 90s, where Reb Shimon Shwab discusses whether to support pro-life movement, and I remember that he was very uneasy about it…
As far as the gemora you cited, all that it says is that a non-Jew may possibly by punished by death for deliberately destroying a fetus. It doesn’t mean that fetus equals human life. In gemora you often find that a non-jew’s wrongful conduct carries a more severe punishment than the one done by a Jew. The halocha that stealing a pruta may lead to the capital for a non-Jew is a primary example of that…
To be fair, one can infer from a certain Rambam that fetus is a life, and thus abortion is infanticide, but I am not going to say which Rambam it is, because I don’t want to help these misguided efforts. But Rambam on this issue as afar as I know is a minority view, daas yochid.
Leib: You were the only one trying to infer whether a fetus is a life or not. This is the way nonJews frame the issue. Personally, I’m not troubled by the question as the Torah frames the issue far differently. The gemara clearly states that a nonJew is liable for killing a fetus and the Rambam states explicitly that this is the halacha, as sourced in the previous comment. The poskim universally agree, only differeing in what punishement would be incurred, but there is absolutely no opion among the poskim which claims that it killing a fetus is permissable for a nonJew. I’m not sure what more you need.