Comments on: New Jersey

New Jersey

Modem Ovary — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 04:07:14 -0800

New Jersey became the fifth state to recognize same-sex partnerships. The law extends health insurance, inheritance and hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples. Marriage is still illegal, but it's a success for NJ in 2003. I've lived here all my life and this is the first time the toll booth state has left me genuinely impressed and feelin proud.

By: pomegranate

pomegranate — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 06:08:42 -0800

Very cool. I'm considering a job either there or Kansas City and this is the kind of thing that makes me think NJ is the way to go, even though the cost of living is much, much higher than KC.

By: archimago

archimago — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 06:15:36 -0800

So the governor "said he would not support legislation that would amend the state's marriage laws to include same-sex partners" but says ""This legislation is a matter of fundamental decency." How does one talk out of the ass and mouth at the same time? Is it an inherent skill, or one that you acquire when you are issued your Hate Club card?

By: amberglow

amberglow — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 06:17:03 -0800

NJ has come a long way...and parts (Plainfield, Asbury Park, etc) have been becoming big suburban gay and lesbian enclaves. It's still not enough tho--unless these partnership and civil union laws give exactly the same rights and benefits.

By: mert

mert — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 07:22:12 -0800

If I were gay I wouldn't want to live in New Jersey anyway. I'd want to be in the gayest place in the world where my values were reflected by everyone I saw around me. Either San francisco or Chelsea or the VAtican.

By: alms

alms — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 07:25:30 -0800

The most exciting thing about the passage of this law was that the national media didn't consider it particularly newsworthy. That more than anything else speaks for how far we've come.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:37:26 -0800

The main reason New Jersey passed this law is because all the toxic waste has turned everyone into hermaphrodites anyway, so what the hell, you know?

By: archimago

archimago — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:18:29 -0800

mert, I know you mean well, but I gotta ask, what are gay values?

By: mcsweetie

mcsweetie — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:24:24 -0800

I think what mert is trying to say is that since homosexuals are attracted to boys, and catholics are too, then if he were gay he would live in the vatican somehow. it would probably be like "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler."

By: Dreama

Dreama — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:31:28 -0800

More Jim Crow, give a little, cover the fundamental prejudices, legislated and codified gay apartheid. A little bit right is still a whole lotta wrong.

By: digaman

digaman — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:09:38 -0800

Mert wrote: If I were gay I wouldn't want to live in New Jersey anyway. I'd want to be in the gayest place in the world where my values were reflected by everyone I saw around me. Either San francisco or Chelsea or the VAtican. I'm gay, and I moved from New Jersey to San Francisco 25 years ago. I certainly don't see my "values reflected" in the "gayest" enclaves here, such as the Castro -- the whole scene is like a parody of bourgeois fashion-surface-branding-obsessed suburban straight culture to me; quite a bit like New Jersey, actually. San Francisco is neither homogenous nor homo-homogenous. I live in Cole Valley, a quiet, neighborhoody, hip-without-being-insufferable, and very mixed part of the city, near the Haight-Ashbury. I like it here.

By: kaibutsu

kaibutsu — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:33:58 -0800

I recently was impressed by news that New Jersey had a poet laureate, but, alas, it seems that the position is no more. But with this news, I guess I can kind of like New Jersey again. Kind of.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:03:54 -0800

this was very interesting : Gay Marriage Inevitable by lawyer and author David French