A lot of reasonable, rational people are happy to welcome same-sex marriage to New Jersey tomorrow. Every other Garden State sourpuss can join their tough-talk governor in the Wrong Side of History pasture, conveniently located just off the NJ Turnpike behind a crumbling Roy Rogers.
The New York Times is trumpeting the news that, come Monday morning, same-sex couples in New Jersey — California’s inverted, shrunken, maladjusted parasitic twin state that was no doubt surgically removed sometime during Pangaea — can get down to the fabulous business of marrying each other. Cake for everyone! Or, for the non-traditionalists, pie. Despite Gov. Chris Christie’s attempt to block the weddings and his suggestion that he would have a difficult time winning an appeal of the lower court ruling that allowed them, same-sex marriages will go forward after a State Supreme Court judge ruled last month that New Jersey had to allow same-sex marriage because a) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex married couples have the right to the same federal benefits as heterosexual married couples, and 2) a 2006 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court to the same effect. In law, the technical term for this sort of ruling is a “double whammy,” the utterance of which is punctuated by the sound effect of a spring going brrrrrrrooooooinnnnngggg.
From the Times:
Mr. Christie’s office appealed the decision, and the state’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal, with oral arguments scheduled for early January. But on Friday, the court unanimously denied the Christie administration’s request for a stay on marriages until the appeal was settled.
While the court’s ruling on Friday applied only to the request for a stay, it also indicated that the justices did not think the appeal had a “reasonable” likelihood of success.
“The state has advanced a number of arguments, but none of them overcome this reality: same-sex couples who cannot marry are not treated equally under the law today,” Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in his opinion. “The harm to them is real, not abstract or speculative.”
Mayors from many of the brick-colored, soul-crushing cities cities in New Jersey (you guys, New Jersey will only be the worst place for about 12 more hours!) are eager to make political history by marrying the first same-sex couples, which means that Chris Christie could find his naked political ambition checked by his reluctance to challenge the GOP’s party-line bigotry.
[NY Times]
Image via AP, Mel Evans