First, I apologize if this was already diaried, I didn't see anything yet.
According to NJ Star Ledger / NJ.com, the proposal will finally get a hearing in the senate:
"On Monday in the Judiciary Committee, we're going to vote on marriage equality," Lesniak (D-Union) said, while making the announcement to a crowd of gay marriage supporters on the Statehouse steps today.
trenton-gay-marriage-march.JPGPatti Sapone/The Star-LedgerHeather Baldwin of Mount Holly at gay marriage rally today in Trenton."On Thursday the full Senate is going to vote on marriage equality," said Lesniak, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee." And God be willing, we'll have 21 votes."
I'm somewhat surprised by this, as was sure that the NYS failure would bury gay marriage in NJ for the foreseeable future. Now, there are no guarantees this would pass - indeed most reports in the last couple of months have been quite negative.
The story mentioned a showing of support for gay marriage at Trenton, with only a small group of opponents - dominated by Lakewood's Orthodox Jews. As a Jew that really saddens me - it puts them in the same bigoted boat as the Catholic Church in Maine and the Mormons in California. Looking this up further found this article at HP about the Orthodox Jews joining with the other religious bigots in opposition. Again, it's a shame but not entirely unexpected.
Public opinion here is pretty split - same source reported polls showing both opposition and support in the span of a week.
It appears one of the keys in finally spurring some action is a letter from some prominent NJ politicians including my Representative, Rush Holt. You can sign onto it at MarriageEqualityNJ.com.