By Cliff Dunn
ORLANDO, FL – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has LGBT activists wondering if he goes “both ways” on gay rights issues. His call last week for a statewide referendum on same-sex marriage followed hot-on-the-heels of his nomination of the first openly gay justice to the state’s Supreme Court.
Christie, 49, is on record opposing gay marriage, and last week he proposed an alternative to legislative action on the issue, saying that voters should decide whether to legalize same-sex marriage, the matter being “too serious to be treated like a political football.”
New Jersey Democrats had hoped that by forcing a vote in the legislature, it would force Christie to either change his position, or veto the legislation and in doing so, show himself to be out of touch with the majority of voters.
The governor’s judicial nomination of Bruce Harris, the 61-year-old openly-gay Republican mayor of Chatham, New Jersey, came a day before Christie promised to veto same-sex marriage legislation in the Garden State.
Opponents decried Christie’s call for a statewide vote. Democratic lawmakers criticized the governor for sidestepping a civil rights issue, but Christie dismissed their concerns, saying that “people would have been happy with a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets of the South.”
That drew fire from Democrats, who pointed out that public opinion opposed civil rights for blacks in the Jim Crow-era South, and a referendum to end segregation during that time would have been overwhelmingly defeated. State Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, one of two openly-gay New Jersey legislators, compared Christie to anti-civil rights segregationists.
The governor called Gusciora and other critics “numbnuts.” He also chastised reports for giving credence to his critics’ remarks. “C’mon guys — you’ve got to be able to call B.S. on those kinds of releases,” said Christie.
New Jersey lawmakers passed a civil unions law in 2006, after the state Supreme Court ordered that marriage benefits be extended to gay couples. The law is being challenged by Lambda Legal, which says that the measure doesn’t provide marriage’s full range of benefits and protections.
Christie told reporters that Harris, his nominee to the state’s high court, has a record of advocating for LGBT rights. “If confirmed to the court, he would recuse himself from that matter because he did not want there to be the appearance of bias on his part on that issue,” Christie said. “My perspective on that issue was to put it aside because he’s not going to rule on that.”