Chris Christie probably wishes he was in Scott Walker’s shoes now, because nothing the New Jersey governor does regarding gay marriage works.
Christie is now in the unenviable position of defending the state’s ban on marriage equality, even though a majority of New Jersey residents oppose it. He’s pointing to the state’s civil union law as a perfectly acceptable alternative to marriage, even though everyone knows it’s not. Worse still, following the Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling, the legal arguments that Christie can turn to to defend the marriage ban have been shot full of holes. So what’s a guy gonna do?
Pretend it’s still 2006. Or at least, that’s what Christie’s legal team is doing. The brief they have filed in state court defending the marriage ban reads like “a bad student paper,” according to Slate. The state argues that restricting marriage is “preserving” the institution, as if marriage needs to be pickled. The state also argues that changing the definition of marriage would “render a profound change,” like maybe the kind of change the Supreme Court rendered in June. And finally, in a barrel-bottom scraping exercise, Christie’s legal eagles claim that it’s the federal government that is the real villain because it won’t recognize civil unions.
This is Christie’s first official legal statement about marriage equality and it may be, in Slate’s words, “the most incoherent defense of heterosexual supremacy yet.” But, really, what did you expect? Christie insists on playing a losing hand, knowing that he jeopardizes his presidential ambitions if he appears too moderate. The legal arguments were never very good, but now they’ve been ruled invalid by the highest court in the land. When it comes to the legal defense of the marriage ban, Christie should listen to the one word response of the majority of Jersey residents: Fuhgeddaboutit.
1EqualityUSA
Mark Zuckershit supports this dip. God! New money is gullible.
2eo
@1EqualityUSA: New money isn’t gullible at all, new money is the same as old money. Facebook have specific commands that allow the NSA to look at all posts deleted or not, pictures, tags and every GPS stamp.
Facebook is old money through and through. That’s without mentioning how they’re co-operating with Russia to name potential dissidents to stop visa’s before the olympics.
QJ201
I’m sure the federal government will buy his “separate is equal” BS.
If the SCONJ has any character is will demand marriage equality to comply with its own ruling from years ago.
Teleny
Christie is not a moderate. He hates gays, teachers, blacks, Latinos, poor people, etc. he is a fat fascist. He is not playing politics: he hates gays.
hf2hvit
Hopefully his lap band will give him gangrene and his own poisons will spill into his gut and kill him with an excruciating death.
Twinkies didn’t work.
GayTampaCowboy
This is PURE politics! He’s protecting his conservative base by defending the law, while he KNOWS that the SCONJ will strike down the civil union statue – thus, a win-win for him.
He knows that gay marriage will happen in the state, and would prefer to blame “activist judges” – again, preserving the base.
If any of you are following all the cases being brought against states with anti-gay-marriage laws on the books, you all know that one-by-one they will be struck down due to the SCOTUS precedent. It’s just going to take time.
GlitterKidder
Why does anyone care what this fat [email protected] has to say? When was the last time he saw his own dick?
LaTeesha
Fat people are stupid. Blood flow to the brain is reduced, making them dumber.
rand503
The Christianist base he is playing to really doesn’t care how weak the arguments are. They just see anything pro-gay as evil. So any defense, no matter how lousy, is a good defense to them. Politically, he is smart to do this, because otherwise he will be killed in the GOP primaries for the presidential race.
I’m sure he is hoping for a final ruling from the NJ surpeme court, and he doesn’t really care how they rule. But if they mandate marriage equality, that’s a plus for him, actually.
Why? Because right now there are lots of people in NJ, especially young people, who won’t vote for him because he is blocking marriage equality. ONce that’s off the table and gays can marry in NJ, that removes a reason to vote against him. Few will care any more what his position is because the right will have come nonetheless.
So what he is doing is, politically, perfectly reasonable. Odious, but reassonable. IT is up to us to remind his children and grandchildren that he was a bigot on this issue.
PSPoolside
For a man with a history of being a bull in a china shop he’s remarkably weak on this issue. The man is a gas bag which is his version of being politically principled.
ZeeZee
When they start treading water, you know that they know that they are sinking…
Doughosier
You can’t run as a Republican without pandering to the mouth breathing, “the earth is 6000 years old” folks. I’m sure he knows equality is inevitable.
Polaro
So much for the likelihood I will vote for a Republican any time in the near future. If this is the best “moderate” they have, they need to give up on national elections now.
mpwaite
What a total idiot! I LOVE LOVE LOVED it when the Queen of England read him the right act about his nonacceptance of gay marriage. “If an 87 year old woman with family dating back to biblical times can accept it, then a Governor from America should as well.. SIGN THE DAMN THING CHRIS!!”
Charli Girl
Christie..sweety,listen…TEA PARTY WILL NOT STAND BY YOU! You are on your own. MAN UP AND LEAD!!!!
Stop being a follower! You have leadership talking points and that is all. You have the potential to do good things…now LEAD!!! Stop being a twit!
jckfmsincty
I support anything he does to keep himself out of the White House.
Icebloo
@mpwaite: I’m not sure whether it was your true intention to mislead people or whether you are smoking crack but let’s have a reality check here. The Queen of England does not and has not ever supported gay marriage OR any gay rights. In fact, in her 61 years on the throne she has never publicly acknowledged we exist – the Queen has NEVER publicly said the world “gay”. Never. Not once.
I never understand why so many gays are so sucked in by all the royal b.s. when those people HATE us ! WAKE THE FUC* UP !
shelleybear
Damn Jabba, just give it up already.
D9W
OK guys, I see all the love that is being shown Christie here (NOT!). Plus all the love shown to the Queen (again NOT!). But what get’s me is the people here and part of our community that will still vote Republican. It’s almost like they cant wait to use their Second Amendment right to shoot themselves in their own foot or be rounded up and gassed- don’t believe me? Just ask frothy breath byproduct Santorum. And you GOP Uncle Toms out there don’t try to tell me the Republicans are fiscal responsible. They are not- Do you realize how big home land security has gotten? And that was put in place by Bush jr. along with NSA monitoring your phone calls and who you call about the white party next week and how long you yacked about the boy in the corner at the white party- like that’s life and death. I guess it’s too much to ask you GOPers to Vote for people who will NOT throw you under the bus 500,000 plus times.
DarkZephyr
@LaTeesha: Not all “fat” people are enemies of gays.
gaym50ish
Governor Christie has said he wants to put the matter to a voter referendum so the people can decide on whether the state will have same-sex marriage.
Do you know when the referendum process was last used in New Jersey? It was in 1915, when the all-male electorate voted to deny voting rights to women.
Could there be any better illustration of why civil-rights issues should not be put to a popular vote?
1EqualityUSA
#21 gaym50ish, Spot on post!
Walker
I dislike Chris Christie as much as anyone else on this planet, but no one does the LGBT community any favors by being obnoxious and rude about fat people. Being oppressed doesn’t give a person the right to oppress others.
DonW
@mpwaite: You do know that the “news” item about the Queen ripping Christie was satire, right?