The debate surrounding the legalization of same sex-marriage returned to Jersey City last Friday when the Million Man March Coalition of Jersey City held a press conference on the steps of City Hall to launch a statewide campaign condemning the Family Equality Act, a bill currently making its way through the Legislature that would establish domestic partnerships. Aside from two reporters, only one person was present. Flanked by signs that read “Say No to Same-Sex Marriage,” Million Man March Coalition [MMMC] President Bishop Austin L. Harrold said that if passed, the state legislation will have dire consequences on the federal level.
“New Jersey is one of the few states who are considering same-sex marriage,” Harrold said at the press conference. “If states approve it, the federal government will follow suit.”
If this happens, Harrold said, the traditional family model – and the corresponding socio-moral values encompassed therein – would be destroyed.
“Our society today has been too lenient to too many things and it has allowed the morality of our community to slip away,” Harrold said. “[The Family Equality Act] is a direct attack on the church – the universal church that God is the spokesman for. Man has lost his vision as to what the family is: one man, one woman and children. We have to redirect our morals to keep our families intact. If we fail, our families will be suffering a great blow.”
Harrold, joined by MMMC member and Greenville resident John Wilson, outlined various ways the legalization of same-sex marriage could negatively impact American and global society, saying it would be both physically and spiritually detrimental.
“If we let same-sex marriage take place, we’re looking at the reduction of children in our world today,” he said. “If we seriously search ourselves, we’ll realize the fact that those families will not work and do not work for the [dispersion] of God’s message.”
During Harrold’s comments, an unidentified man twirled across the plaza shouting “God loves gays!” three times.
Political logic
Likening the issue of same-sex partner benefits to an uninsured driver filing a claim for an accident, Harrold said domestic partnerships would give same-sex partners an unfair advantage because it would grant them “financial support and benefits without following the route society and law have laid out over the years.”
“Why should a woman who’s married to a woman get the same benefits as a woman who’s married to a man?” Harrold said.
Wilson, in helping Harrold wrap up the press conference, said city residents can find the strength within themselves to resist the lure of approving same-sex marriage.
“If you can say no to drugs, you can say no to same-sex marriage,” Wilson said.
Downtown resident Gabriel Tucker, the only person present at the Oct. 17 petition kick-off other than two reporters, said he agreed with Harrold’s warnings.
“I just passed by and caught the end of [the press conference], but I agree to this as well,” Tucker, 36, said. “But when I read my Bible and Koran, it doesn’t say anything about clergymen being allowed to marry.”
Contentious issue
Same-sex marriage came into New Jersey’s political arena when seven same-sex couples, including one from Union City, filed suit in Hudson County Superior Court in June 2002 to protest the state’s refusal to recognize domestic partnerships.
A political and media storm ensued, with state religious and conservative political groups coming out against the lawsuit. After New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey publicly condemned the lawsuit, Lambda Legal – the New York-based activist group that originally filed the suit on behalf of the New Jersey couples – stepped up their campaign of Town Hall meetings across the state to garner support for the initiative.
At a Jersey City Town Hall meeting on Feb. 26 at the Grace Van Vorst Episcopal Church, State Sen. Bernard Kenny, along with Assemblyman Anthony Impreveduto, D-Secaucus and Assemblywoman Elba Perez-Cinciarelli, D-Jersey City, said they would support both the lawsuit and the movement to legalize domestic partnerships.
Those February commitments proved fruitful when the Family Equality Act – known officially as Bill No. 3743 – was introduced to the Legislature on June 5. Co-sponsored by Impreveduto, the bill would officially recognize domestic partnerships and give same-sex couples the same benefits as married couples. It is now working its way through the Assembly’s Health and Human Services Committee.
Conservative groups have since stepped up their efforts, and the MMMC’s drive to gather signatures opposing the legislation is just one manifestation of the movement to suppress the bill.
The lawsuit filed in Hudson County in June, which was moved to Mercer County Superior Court in November 2002, is still pending.
Local reactions
In addition to the petition drive, Harrold has been lobbying the City Council to pass a resolution against the Family Equality Act. Appearing before the City Council Oct. 9, Harrold asked the council to consider taking a position on the proposed constitutional amendment that would limit the definition of marriage to one man and one woman.
Council President L. Harvey Smith said last week that the council was not considering drafting a resolution on either side of the issue.
Harrold, of the Oxford Avenue-based Interdenominational Christian Community Church, said the MMMC had the support of the Jersey City Ministerial Alliance and the Jersey City Human Rights Commission [JCHRC], a city-affiliated agency set up in the mid-1970s by city ordinance to intake, view, fact-find, and make determinations on anything to do with discrimination. Although the JCHRC is an autonomous organization, it is operated through the city’s Division of Economic Opportunity and its commissioners are appointed by the mayor.
Sonia Schulman, director of the Economic Opportunity Division, said she felt it was ludicrous that the JCHRC would publicly speak out against a civil rights issue.
“The idea that a human rights commission would actually be discriminating against someone, to me, is unconscionable,” Schulman said Friday. “That is not the position of the administration. They are an autonomous body but this is something that’s outside their realm. And I will tell them that at their next board meeting. It’s our duty and obligation to protect all residents of Jersey City.”
Lambda Legal’s New Jersey campaign manager, Steven Goldstein, said Friday he found it unlikely that the MMMC’s efforts would put any dent in Hudson County’s already strong support for domestic partnerships.
“Not only is New Jersey one of the most fair-minded states in the nation in terms of supporting both domestic partnership benefits and marriage for lesbian and gay couples, but Jersey City in particular is a beacon of support for the civil rights of lesbians and gays,” Goldstein said. “And that’s particularly the case on marriage and domestic partnerships, where earlier this year a poll said there’s a 55 percent [approval rating], in Hudson County, for marriage.”
Added Goldstein, “If anything, I suspect these efforts will galvanize the already overwhelming support that marriage and domestic partnerships have in Jersey City.”