The New Jersey Senate is debating RIGHT NOW the bill to allow same-sex marriage. The Senate majority leader assured everyone the bill had NO CHANCE. How nice. But I guess we’ll see!
You can watch the live video feed here and play along. Ready? Go!
(Disclaimer: These quotes are approximate. We’re pulling them from a video feed and they may be misheard. Also, all times are in Central Standard, cause that’s where I live.)
3:53 PM: And that’s a wrap, dear readers. I’m sure we’ll meet again soon when some other legislature somewhere decides equality is lame.
Feel free to keep sharing your feelings in the comments though! Open thread!
3:47 PM: Oh hey, it’s Sarah Shahi! How did she get in here?! Blame Laneia. 
3:45 PM: So that went about how we expected. But don’t worry, love still exists. LOOK AT THESE ADORABLE ANIMALS WHO OBVIOUSLY LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH.
3:38 PM: And it was defeated. The clapping when he said “defeated” made me nauseated.
3:37 PM: THIS IS IT. THEY CALLED THE QUESTION.
3:35 PM: A senator whose name I did not catch, sadly: “It’s important for me to stand up and say that everyone has a right to fight for their life, for the kind of life that we all want because that is the American dream. …We all need to stand up, and not judge, but stand up and support others fighting for rights.”
3:32 PM: Are you ready to see some chicks making out? Yeah, I thought so. That’s what these liveblogs are really for.
3:30 PM: Sen. Gordon gets it: All of the major civil rights victories in the past 100 years came from the legislature, not from referenda. Exactly, letting the majority vote on the rights of the minority is stupid. HOLLA.
3:27 PM: She’s done. She was so great! Love her ending line: “Let these same-sex couples be full participants in society.”
3:25 PM: Here’s a history of this bill from the New Jersey Star-Ledger.
3:23 PM: “We cannot abdicate our responsibility. Once we take a state action, that action must be constitutional in its equal protection.” She’s my new favorite person, btw.
3:20 PM: She’s making some pretty compelling arguments about why this is indeed a civil rights issue. Good point: women wouldn’t have the right to vote had legislators not taken a stand. Just because this isn’t a racial injustice doesn’t mean it’s not a civil rights injustice, she says.
3:14 PM: Sen. Nia Gill is up! I remember her from the Judicial Committee hearing. She also just brought up that the “traditional definition of marriage” used to not include interracial marriage.
“There is nothing you can do to tweak the civil union law to change the fact that same-sex couples are denied the benefits of insurance under national insurance policies because we had a separate and unequal system.”
3:07 PM: Sen. Bono sounds like she’s with us? She’s being really vague. OH YES IN FAVOR, GOOD. Thank you, ma’am. Probably not the most effective speech, though, if I couldn’t tell how you were voting until the end.
3:03 PM: Shit, he’s voting no! But we gentrified his neighborhood! This is lame. He’s from the gayest district in Jersey! WTF.
2:59 PM: Sen. Keene says that gay people turn neighborhoods around. We push out the drug dealers, he says. Yeah! The power of the rainbow flag, kids.
2:56 PM: There are a lot of senators talking about how the people of New Jersey should vote on this themselves.
Yea I am watching this and pouring a drink.
how dare that senator get up there and say right off the BAT that he’s from “the gayest district” in new jersey, and then basically go on for five minutes about how he’s opposing the bill because he doesn’t think people who don’t support the bill should be called mean names.
are you actually my bottle of maker’s, secretly blogging away while i am at work?
yes and at this rate i’m going to be empty by the time you get home
oh my god please slow down.
I know that that photo is Maker’s, but every time i first glance at it I mistake it for a tiny gnome in a cap.
And I am terrified of gnomes.
LOL
we all think that’s a gnome, it’s a common problem
I thought it was a bottle of syrup wearing a leaky red condom as a cap.
perv
Ah, another debate about what bcw’s gravatar actually is. There must be some kind of subliminal message.
It’s a good thing BCW’s comments always rock. It makes it okay that I first have a moment of gnome-phobia panic.
Wow. I mean, wow. Sen Nia Gill might just be my new fav person too. What an amazing speaker.
i know. too bad rational thinking is like kryptonite to some of these people
SENATOR RUIZ IS MY NEW CRUSH
no. mine mine mine!
not yours!
she was tearing up. adorable.
i was surprised her tears didn’t start sizzling on her face
This.
She was cuuuuuuute. Her hair! And also her words, those were lovely.
YOU CAN’T HAVE HER, I AM IN LOVE.
Thank you for doing this by the way.
THERE SHOULD BE A ROLL CALL VOTE!!!
“and the bill is defeated.”
.
WOOING ENSUES
What asshats clap and woo when people just had civil rights denied?!
Just thinking the same thing. Its disgusting.
People that need to have 5’3” inches of crazy lesbian Jew flying at them out of the darkness.
this made me laugh out loud.
I seek to bring joy in these dark times.
Then consider yourself a success! :D Too funny
Fuck.
i’m tired of these bills not passing, and i’m not even from the states… :(
f this.
When everyone started clapping I actually started crying. It’s so sad. Someone commented and said “why should the gays ‘win the fight’ while the heterosexuals lose?” I still don’t understand what they’re going to lose.
fjkdla
Fake heterosexuals who are basically repressed homos have a lot to lose from gays gaining rights. They already have low self-esteem, but still cling to the belief that their choice of heterosexuality was right because gays are treated like second class citizens. But if gays become “equal” citizens, their “forced” choice of heterosexuality appears dumb. And they lose the little self-esteem they have left, and they can’t afford it. I guess.
the fact that there was not a full roll call vote is frustrating. I think the legislators that are denying rights to others should have the balls to say it out loud so they can hear how ridiculous they sound. That and so NJ equality can target them for ousting.
welp. there goes nothing, NJ. way to throw it in the trash and light it on fire and then cheer. idiots.
Poopheads.
Awesome.
Puppies touching noses doesn’t make it all better, but it sure helps.
I am not excited about this at all. I’m going back to my Fortress of Awesome and taking a nap. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be better able to cope with all the stupid in the world.
This hurts my heart. Also, I think those puppies are gay. Cute and gay. Just how I like ’em.
OMG I saw the cutest puppy the other day- it was white and fluffy and trotted along normally with it’s front legs and then it’s back legs swang back and forth like a pendulum.
It was so cute I nearly just started following it around town… but I was hungover and walking home to shower (never do a power hour with red wine and never let it go on for an hour and 45 if you do). But yes, I definitely like to think it was an adorable little queer too.
f. this so hard. nj’s my state. i need to go out and buy something shiny. sigh. :(
NOT AN ENGAGEMENT RING
Snuggling squirrels – …squggles? – and bcw getting to vent her anger in bubbly, splenetic squirts almost makes this feel a little better.
New Jersey = Newsy Jeer. This sucks, chaps; sorry to read.
I don’t know what’s sadder, the fact that my little heart is used to this feeling of disappointment or that they fucking CLAPPED. Wake me up when this country does, kthx.
Blame Laneia? THANK LANEIA.
Thanks for taking the time to do this, Sarah.
You’re so nice, Emily! If there’s one thing I love, it’s watching legislators call me a second-class citizen. So uh, my pleasure.
The same people that clapped are the same people that would clap if slavery was reinstated. “Fuck human rights” is what I head every time they clapped. Its sad, really sad actually, but it just goes to show, it really does take all kinds.
so this is what happened while i was at the gym.
and theres this.. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/07/toronto-global-epice.html As a Torontonian this is utterly embarrassing and shameful…
Heard about the vote a few minutes ago, whiskey is on the To Do list tonight.
New Jersey legislature is on my to do list. See… it says right here: “1) fuck New Jersey”.
I’m going to take a trip to NJ just to have some lesbian sex. I don’t know how it’s going to help, but by God I’m going to do it, and it’s going to make me feel better dammit. Also, bless you Laneia
Haaa I love it. But of course you wouldn’t want to rent a hotel to do it, then you are giving them your tax money (aren’t hospitality taxes pretty hefty in most places?). But I’m sure you can figure out other arrangements. :P
What’s up with all of these states lately? Sheesh. Those squirrels make sad, I saw one dead in the road today. It was a sign. Gawd. Clapping asshats. We’ll get there someday… in the meantime, cheers.
When they read out the decision, my brother and I yelled in unison “you lie!”
This really sucks. It’s disappointing that people clearly defeat bills like this because it’s primarily seen as a super liberal moral agenda rather than a human rights deficiency. Still just makes me want to fight harder for our rights. We clearly aren’t going anywhere or are going to back down EVER.
going to give my cute dog a big hug and down some Landshark in temporary defeat.
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So now, we have several administrations legally prohibiting its citizens the right to marry. WTF. How much longer are we going to have to put up with this legalized discrimination?
so its not any surprise… but still. it doesnt even bother me as much that it wasn’t passed as all of the stupid, head-ache inducing shit that educated law makers are saying in “defense” of the “family”. i want rights but i really just want people not to hate me for who i am.. and its sad that i even have to want that.
In all reality I guess it really doesn’t matter if New Jersey didn’t pass the bill. Granted it would give the US another state for Gay Marriage but at the federal level, the one that matters, it still isn’t recognized. Means no tax breaks, no health care benefits if on government health care, etc.