Diane Robertson
After the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected a stay on same-sex marriages, local officials began issuing marriage licenses to homosexuals at midnight Monday, Oct 21st. Governor Chris Christie rather than carry through with a promised appeal to the state dropped the legal motion.
In effect, Christie’s decision allowed a state superior court judge, Mary Jacobson, to legalize gay marriage statewide. Jacobson was the first judge to use the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA as a reason that a state must legalize gay marriage.
Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) said, “The mark of a leader is to walk a principled walk no matter the difficulty of the path. Chris Christie has failed the test, abandoning both voters and the core institution of society.”
Len Deo, the president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said, “We are disappointed that Governor Christie dropped the appeal, surrendering the moral authority of the executive branch. But we especially condemn the New Jersey Supreme Court’s efforts to reshape this state after their own ideology, leaving the natural family without an advocate and religious liberty twisting in the wind.”
New Jersey has officially become the 14th state to legalize gay marriage, and the 6th state to have gay marriage enforced through activist judges.
Since the United States Supreme court ruled on same-sex marriage, gay activists have filed many lawsuits against state constitutional amendments that define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Jacobson’s use of the June 2013 Supreme Court ruling on DOMA as a reason a state must legalize gay marriage could set up a bad precedent. Currently 30 states have the definition of traditional marriage enshrined in their constitution, and 5 additional states have laws against same-sex marriage.