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The battle for equality: One leader's perspective
Last Updated on Saturday, 01 May 2010 10:44 Written by Steven Goldstein, Chair of Garden State Equality Monday, 01 February 2010 19:38
Steven Goldstein
I get it. All leaders must be held accountable. Thus, in the February-March issue of Out In Jersey, editor Toby Grace and letter-writer John Caminiti point fingers at New Jersey’s LGBT leadership for the marriage equality loss. Mr. Caminiti specifically takes Garden State Equality and me to task, as his right, wondering what we’ve done for the community. That’s part of being a leader: You get the criticism and you get the praise. And if a publication is as fair as Out In Jersey is, you also get
the chance to respond.
So here goes: Since Garden State Equality's founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 210 LGBT civil rights laws at the state, county and local levels. The full list of 210 laws is at www.GardenStateEquality.org. Organizations other than Garden State Equality, and many individuals inside and outside the organization, also played a leading role in these achievements. They deserve much credit, and we extend to them our most profound gratitude.
But no one can dismiss Garden State Equality's impact when you look at the acceleration of LGBT civil rights laws enacted in New Jersey after Garden State Equality's founding. Indeed, New Jersey's 210 LGBT civil rights laws since 2004 founding have changed the fabric of our state. The laws include twelve expansions of the domestic partnership law from 2004 to 2006; the civil union law in 2006; a law expanding the Law Against Discrimination to include the transgender community in 2006; and in 2008, a statewide law that simultaneously overhauled the state's anti-bullying law, expanded the state's hate crimes law to encompass the transgender community, and toughened up the entire hate crimes law to strengthen the fight against all bias-motivated violence.
In 2008, New Jersey became only the second state in the United States, after California, to mandate paid family leave to employees who need to care for their same-sex partners. To this day, even states with marriage equality don't have paid family leave laws covering employees with same-sex spouses.
In 2009, in conjunction with his address at Garden State Equality's annual Legends Dinner – and through our partnership with the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey and its political director Barbra Casbar Siperstein – then-Governor Jon Corzine signed an executive order mandating that the state indicate gender on driver licenses in accordance with one's own gender identity or expression. That was another milestone for transgender rights, as driver licenses are the primary form of identification in our society.
We're grateful for the recognition along the way, which we must share with many others. Garden State Equality has been the subject of an academic article in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, which assessed the organization as being a model of legislative success for an American LGBT advocacy organization. Garden State Equality was the first, and is still the only, statewide civil rights organization in history to be showcased in an Academy Award®-winning film. And all of us in New Jersey can be proud that a 2009 year-end study by the watchdog organization www.eQualityGiving.com ranked New Jersey as #1 in the United States for LGBT civil rights, tied with California, Iowa and Vermont. That was without New Jersey's yet having won marriage equality, which will happen soon.
Now let's examine what happened in the legislative fight for marriage equality. Before Chris Christie was elected in November, we had marriage equality in the bag. In post-mortems, even the leading anti-marriage equality activist Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, admitted in the press that our side had victory locked up before the election. So we were hardly overconfident. We had more than enough votes in both houses to win.
What happened? Chris Christie won the governorship. Immediately upon his election, Governor-elect Christie – obsessed in his opposition to marriage equality – twisted the arms of several Republican legislators and even some Democrats, and changed the tide completely. The loss next door in New York didn't help either, particularly with legislators in the close-in New Jersey suburbs of New York whose arms Governor-elect Christie was twisting.
Between Christie's win and New York's loss, Garden State Equality, even with its track record of legislative victories, became like a champion figure skater slammed with a wrench in both knees who was then told to go out there and win the gold.
Let's make this clear: For years, we fought the Democratic establishment tooth and nail, with the blood all but pouring on the floor, not to stall the marriage vote until after the 2009 election. We made financial contributions, we withheld them. We elected public officials, we defeated them. We extended every carrot and every stick known to humankind. But the cocky New Jersey Democrats never thought they could lose and rebuffed us every time, no matter how much we went at them. And truth be told, the progressive grassroots was not yet ready to say, 'We'd rather see a bad Democrat lose than not vote Democratic,' as the progressive grassroots is today. It took the legislative loss on marriage equality to get to that point.
And we fought just as boldly and massively during the homestretch of the legislative campaign for marriage equality. From the November election through the final state Senate vote on marriage equality in January, Garden State Equality mobilized thousands upon thousands of New Jerseyans in rallies at the State House. Mr. Caminiti writes: “How many major intersections have been blocked to traffic? How many sit-ins have been held?” The answers: Many, and many. Several times legislators couldn’t even get inside their offices – that’s how many of our members and allies were outside them. If Mr. Caminiti were among the thousands who joined us, I didn’t see him – and I apologize for that.
Beyond the grassroots mobilization, Garden State Equality had the foresight to lay the groundwork for next stage of the marriage equality fight. We contacted Lambda Legal and told our colleagues there to get ready to go back to court. Meanwhile, under the most excruciatingly difficult circumstances of Governor-elect Christie's obsessive lobbying, and the impact of New York's loss on next-door New Jersey, we pressed for – and got – a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and a full vote on the Senate floor. We won the vote in the hearing and lost the full Senate vote.
In the process, legislators, including our opponents, publicly admitted at the hearing and on the Senate floor that the civil union law was a failure. Even the notorious anti-LGBT Senator Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen) said the civil union law had failed.
Those admissions are why Garden State Equality pressed so hard for the hearing and the vote, even when some national activists didn't understand the logic behind our full-court press in light of what suddenly seemed – and resulted in – a legislative defeat. The process added to the legislative record that the New Jersey Supreme Court will now examine.
For that matter, New Jersey remains in better shape than any other U.S. state without marriage equality to win it.
In 2006, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Lewis v. Harris that same-sex couples must receive equal treatment under the law. The Court ordered the legislature to enact marriage equality or something else that would be equal to, and work just like, marriage equality. Now we have evidence the "something else" hasn't worked. That evidence now comes from more than the Civil Union Review Commission that the legislature established. It comes from legislators themselves - the ironic beauty of our final legislative drive for marriage equality.
Because Garden State Equality and many other organizations and individuals worked their hearts out – and advanced a legislative process throughout which legislative opponents admitted the civil union law's failure – the ball has moved forward dramatically. If ever there was a win from a loss, New Jersey is that example.
Case in point: In his column of Monday, January 18, 2010, Trenton Times columnist George Amick quoted a marriage-equality opponent as saying that his side's admitting the civil union law has failed was "a stunning legal blunder. The argument should have been that civil unions are working, and that there have been only a relatively few complaints. Instead, (we) walked right into a trap."
Make no mistake, with 210 laws enacted, and one legislative loss, during the nearly six years of Garden State Equality's existence, we and our partner organizations are no longer batting 1.000. Believe me, I’m not happy with .997 either; I always wanted the A+ in school when I got an A, and it cost me decades of therapy.
But if leadership is about having the vision and the ability to lay the groundwork for victory even during the most painful loses, then not only are the 65,000 members of Garden State Equality leaders, but so are the entire LGBT community and our legions of allies, including the readers of Out In Jersey. As for me, I’m honored to be at your side.
But no one can dismiss Garden State Equality's impact when you look at the acceleration of LGBT civil rights laws enacted in New Jersey after Garden State Equality's founding. Indeed, New Jersey's 210 LGBT civil rights laws since 2004 founding have changed the fabric of our state. The laws include twelve expansions of the domestic partnership law from 2004 to 2006; the civil union law in 2006; a law expanding the Law Against Discrimination to include the transgender community in 2006; and in 2008, a statewide law that simultaneously overhauled the state's anti-bullying law, expanded the state's hate crimes law to encompass the transgender community, and toughened up the entire hate crimes law to strengthen the fight against all bias-motivated violence.
In 2008, New Jersey became only the second state in the United States, after California, to mandate paid family leave to employees who need to care for their same-sex partners. To this day, even states with marriage equality don't have paid family leave laws covering employees with same-sex spouses.
In 2009, in conjunction with his address at Garden State Equality's annual Legends Dinner – and through our partnership with the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey and its political director Barbra Casbar Siperstein – then-Governor Jon Corzine signed an executive order mandating that the state indicate gender on driver licenses in accordance with one's own gender identity or expression. That was another milestone for transgender rights, as driver licenses are the primary form of identification in our society.
We're grateful for the recognition along the way, which we must share with many others. Garden State Equality has been the subject of an academic article in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, which assessed the organization as being a model of legislative success for an American LGBT advocacy organization. Garden State Equality was the first, and is still the only, statewide civil rights organization in history to be showcased in an Academy Award®-winning film. And all of us in New Jersey can be proud that a 2009 year-end study by the watchdog organization www.eQualityGiving.com ranked New Jersey as #1 in the United States for LGBT civil rights, tied with California, Iowa and Vermont. That was without New Jersey's yet having won marriage equality, which will happen soon.
Now let's examine what happened in the legislative fight for marriage equality. Before Chris Christie was elected in November, we had marriage equality in the bag. In post-mortems, even the leading anti-marriage equality activist Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, admitted in the press that our side had victory locked up before the election. So we were hardly overconfident. We had more than enough votes in both houses to win.
What happened? Chris Christie won the governorship. Immediately upon his election, Governor-elect Christie – obsessed in his opposition to marriage equality – twisted the arms of several Republican legislators and even some Democrats, and changed the tide completely. The loss next door in New York didn't help either, particularly with legislators in the close-in New Jersey suburbs of New York whose arms Governor-elect Christie was twisting.
Between Christie's win and New York's loss, Garden State Equality, even with its track record of legislative victories, became like a champion figure skater slammed with a wrench in both knees who was then told to go out there and win the gold.
Let's make this clear: For years, we fought the Democratic establishment tooth and nail, with the blood all but pouring on the floor, not to stall the marriage vote until after the 2009 election. We made financial contributions, we withheld them. We elected public officials, we defeated them. We extended every carrot and every stick known to humankind. But the cocky New Jersey Democrats never thought they could lose and rebuffed us every time, no matter how much we went at them. And truth be told, the progressive grassroots was not yet ready to say, 'We'd rather see a bad Democrat lose than not vote Democratic,' as the progressive grassroots is today. It took the legislative loss on marriage equality to get to that point.
And we fought just as boldly and massively during the homestretch of the legislative campaign for marriage equality. From the November election through the final state Senate vote on marriage equality in January, Garden State Equality mobilized thousands upon thousands of New Jerseyans in rallies at the State House. Mr. Caminiti writes: “How many major intersections have been blocked to traffic? How many sit-ins have been held?” The answers: Many, and many. Several times legislators couldn’t even get inside their offices – that’s how many of our members and allies were outside them. If Mr. Caminiti were among the thousands who joined us, I didn’t see him – and I apologize for that.
Beyond the grassroots mobilization, Garden State Equality had the foresight to lay the groundwork for next stage of the marriage equality fight. We contacted Lambda Legal and told our colleagues there to get ready to go back to court. Meanwhile, under the most excruciatingly difficult circumstances of Governor-elect Christie's obsessive lobbying, and the impact of New York's loss on next-door New Jersey, we pressed for – and got – a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and a full vote on the Senate floor. We won the vote in the hearing and lost the full Senate vote.
In the process, legislators, including our opponents, publicly admitted at the hearing and on the Senate floor that the civil union law was a failure. Even the notorious anti-LGBT Senator Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen) said the civil union law had failed.
Those admissions are why Garden State Equality pressed so hard for the hearing and the vote, even when some national activists didn't understand the logic behind our full-court press in light of what suddenly seemed – and resulted in – a legislative defeat. The process added to the legislative record that the New Jersey Supreme Court will now examine.
For that matter, New Jersey remains in better shape than any other U.S. state without marriage equality to win it.
In 2006, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in Lewis v. Harris that same-sex couples must receive equal treatment under the law. The Court ordered the legislature to enact marriage equality or something else that would be equal to, and work just like, marriage equality. Now we have evidence the "something else" hasn't worked. That evidence now comes from more than the Civil Union Review Commission that the legislature established. It comes from legislators themselves - the ironic beauty of our final legislative drive for marriage equality.
Because Garden State Equality and many other organizations and individuals worked their hearts out – and advanced a legislative process throughout which legislative opponents admitted the civil union law's failure – the ball has moved forward dramatically. If ever there was a win from a loss, New Jersey is that example.
Case in point: In his column of Monday, January 18, 2010, Trenton Times columnist George Amick quoted a marriage-equality opponent as saying that his side's admitting the civil union law has failed was "a stunning legal blunder. The argument should have been that civil unions are working, and that there have been only a relatively few complaints. Instead, (we) walked right into a trap."
Make no mistake, with 210 laws enacted, and one legislative loss, during the nearly six years of Garden State Equality's existence, we and our partner organizations are no longer batting 1.000. Believe me, I’m not happy with .997 either; I always wanted the A+ in school when I got an A, and it cost me decades of therapy.
But if leadership is about having the vision and the ability to lay the groundwork for victory even during the most painful loses, then not only are the 65,000 members of Garden State Equality leaders, but so are the entire LGBT community and our legions of allies, including the readers of Out In Jersey. As for me, I’m honored to be at your side.
