We all knew that it was coming, Save Jerseyans.
Chris Christie has said since before he became governor of New Jersey that he was for civil unions and against gay marriage. The level of outrage that I saw on Facebook and Twitter on Friday afternoon was actually rather appalling.
Whether you agree with the Governor’s position or not, he made himself perfectly clear on numerous occasions. The nasty comments clearly could have been warranted on any day of the last three years, but for some reason, those with the loudest mouths seemed to have waited until the veto actually happened. As though they were holding out on some speck of misplaced hope that he was speaking in jest?
So it happened. It is over and done with. The gay community lobbied hard to get those bills passed and they succeed, even if it was by a single vote. Speaking with Matt Rooney on Friday afternoon, we both were sure that the decision would come down sometime at the end of the week’s news cycle, and we were correct.
However, the Governor decided to do something I actually did not expect…
He did not merely veto the bill and move on to what the Republican caucuses consider to be the more important issues of the day. Instead he chose to issue a “conditional veto,” which for those who do know, is just like a regular veto but comes with a statement from the Governor saying what he did not like about the bill and what would need to change for him to sign it.
Usually the change is something minimal, but important. A change that would normally safeguard the bill from unintended consequence or strip it of some latent ambiguity. However, that is not what happened on Friday . . .
Christie’s conditional veto of the gay marriage bill was not actually conditional at all. It was more akin to a policy statement that would be better left to a press release than an official document of the office. Not only that, but it managed to offend everyone on both sides of the issue, and even some who find themselves indifferent to the question of same-sex marriage.
The condition under which Christie states that he would have signed the gay marriage bill would be if it were simply not the gay marriage bill. It was more the Governor trying to say that he would sign the bill only if it came to him in a form that was completely different from what it was meant to be, and therefore accomplished goals that were totally outside the scope of its intention.
Instead, he would sign a bill that created “a strong Ombudsman for Civil Unions” who would investigate individual complaints of maladministration in the civil union laws. This person would receive information from citizens affected by civil union laws not being enforced and would alert the state so that action could be taken. All in all, its not really a bad idea. The main criticism of the civil union law is that the rights are not so readily enforced in the private sector, and this would ensure that problems would be dealt with as they came up.
Of course, there are problems with it, especially since the office left much to the imagination when it comes to details. With that, the Governor managed to offend all groups.
- Liberals – It is important that I make one thing clear off the bat. These people were not going to vote for Chris Christie anyway. Therefore any political problem arising from their discomfort is largely unfelt among Christie’s political advisors. They knew that Christie was against gay marriage, and if that is their litmus test, they were not about the cross over to the GOP in 2013 anyway. That being said, they seemed to find the creation of this Ombudsman to be an insult. To the liberal, or even to those more socially libertarian conservatives, the “separate but equal” stench of the civil union law reeks of discrimination, and hiring someone to police said discrimination falls short of a solution. So, not only were they unhappy that S1/A1 did not become law, but they were even more enraged at the sight of this condition.
- RINO Hunting Conservatives – These people I usually do not lend a ton of credence to. They like to pick on Governor Christie for any decision that he makes simply because they view the world through the most opaque of blinders. No matter what he does, he is simply a RINO (Republican In Name Only) and not conservative enough. By putting out a six sentence statement, to the RINO Hunter, Christie was sending a signal that he is a liberal and finds this issue to warrant the state’s time. They also balk at the fact that no where in the statement does it proclaim that marriage should be a union between one man and one woman, and instead skirts that issue entirely in favor of calling for a constitutional amendment by referendum. They live for perceiving flaws like this and shouting them loud and clear. Perhaps they actually are not so offended as they are delighted that they have something new to complain about.
- Actual Conservatives – Then we come to free-thinking individuals who also recognize the reality of politics in the Garden State. They understand that Christie could not simply ignore the issue; they may not agree with him, but they understand. Polling shows that a majority of New Jerseyans are now for gay marriage in our state, but the Governor’s personal position has been clear, and as a man of principle he would not be changing his mind. Additionally, he certainly has presidential aspirations, and a South Carolina Primary would not be nearly as forgiving as New Jersey voters. However, they are also perturbed. Just a look at the few comments my last post received on Friday night confirms what I have been hearing throughout the weekend from other Republicans – “Does every solution have to come with the expansion of government? Who is going to pay for this Ombudsman?” To be honest, Save Jerseyans, this was my first reaction. Why create a completely new office and cost taxpayers more money to enforce a law that should already be enforced in the first place? This hardly seems like a conservative solution at all. It seems like something Democrats would normally cheer for, that is, if they were not so caught up playing political football with this issue as it stands. To be fair to Governor Christie, if conditional veto did not say whether the Ombudsman would be a new hire in Trenton or whether a current office would assume the duties. However, with Trenton’s track record, I do not blame Republicans for being skeptical.
So there we have it. Gay marriage was vetoed, as we all knew that it would be, but now everyone, even its opponents, find themselves upset.
RINO Christie loves spending money only slightly less than the Democrats.
I'm an actual conservative who thinks Christie's call for an Ombudsman was a good idea. Don't worry about what it will cost, because it will never happen.
One of the aruguments that Garden State Equality successfully made to change the minds of Democrats previously opposed to gay marriage is that civil unions have not worked.
The truth is that GSE never wanted civil unions to work. Rather than encourage couples were suffered discrimination to report the offenses to the authorities, GSE told couples to report the discrimination to them. They used these stories as ancedotal evidence to convince legislators that civil unions were not working.
Christie's call for an Ombudsman is shows his commitment to civil unions working. It's was a brilliant political move and perhaps a brilliant legal move to give the Supremes an alternative to legalizing gay marriage when they hear Lewis v Harris III
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think which you really should write even more on this subject, it could possibly not be a taboo topic but frequently people today are not sufficient to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
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