There is other programing being aired on New Jersey Network, with an occasional crawl indicating that they will pick up coverage “once the Senate takes up the bill”.
(LOS ANGELES) – The Williams Institute released this week a new study estimating the financial impact of New Jersey extending marriage to same-sex couples. The report estimates that extending marriage to same-sex couples would boost the New Jersey economy by almost $200 million during the next three years, creating approximately 1,400 jobs and generating over $15 million in revenues for the state budget.
The estimate, based on Census Bureau data, includes data from states that have extended marriage to same-sex couples, and a recent survey of Massachusetts gay couples asking them to report how much they spent on their weddings.
Credit: San Diego Gay and Lesbian News
This is the fourth analysis of the fiscal impact of extending the rights and obligations of marriage to same-sex couples conducted by the Williams Institute for New Jersey. Prior studies analyzed the impact of New Jersey’s domestic partnership and civil union laws. In the summer of 2008, the Institute presented an analysis of the fiscal impact of marriage to the New Jersey Civil Union Commission.
“The new report takes into account the changing legal landscape and the recession,” says study co-author Brad Sears, Executive Director of the Williams Institute. “When we conducted our last analysis in 2008, New Jersey would have only competed with one other state in attracting out-of-state same-sex couples seeking to marry. Now same-sex couples can marry in five other states.”
The recession has also reduced the amount that couples in the United States and New Jersey spend, on average, on their weddings.
Sears testified about the new analysis before the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, December 7. The marriage legislation was passed by a 7-6 vote.
The new report also takes into account that New York same-sex couples now have a greater incentive to come to New Jersey to marry. “While the legislature did not extend marriage to same-sex couples this month, the New York Court of Appeals recently upheld the decision of state agencies to recognize the relationships of New York same-sex couples who marry in other states” says study co-author Christopher Ramos. “This makes it likely that many New York couples will make the short trip to New Jersey to marry.”
This new estimate only includes direct spending by same-sex couples on their weddings, and tourism spending by out-of-state couples who travel to marry in New Jersey and the guests of in-state couples who marry. It does not include spending by family members and friends on gifts or by those traveling within New Jersey to attend weddings. The estimate also does not include the standard multiplier for tourism spending, that each $1 spent in the state generates over $2 in additional spending.
“If these factors are taken into account,” says Sears, “the total impact on the New Jersey could be close to half a billion dollars.
GSE: “Savvyplanners, news of a lifetime: STATE SENATE TO VOTE THURSDAY ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY BILL”
MEMBERS: BREAKING NEWS FOR YOU TO FORWARD IMMEDIATELY TO YOUR FRIENDS, RELATIVES, ORGANIZATIONAL AND CONGREGATIONAL COLLEAGUES — AND TO YOUR LIST SERVS AND BLOGS:
The New Jersey State Senate has just announced it is voting this Thursday, January 7, 2010 on the marriage equality bill. We need each of you to join us for this most momentus (sic) day in our lives.
We ask you to meet us in front of the State House in Trenton Thursday at 10:30 am, when we will march from the State House to the State House Annex, and then talk to legislators before the vote.
You may meet us in front of the State House earlier than 10:30 am Thursday to help us organize. We will be there earlier whenever you arrive.
The address of the State House, for GPS and MapQuest purposes, is 125 West State Street. Park at the Trenton Marriott garage, 1 West Lafayette Street.
Thursday afternoon, immediately after the Senate vote, Garden State Equality will hold a news conference and a free member reception at the Trenton Marriott Ballroom, 1 West Lafayette Street. We ask all of you, members and journalists, to be there.
For further information
Journalists: Contact Chair Steven Goldstein, cell (917) 449-8918.
Members: Contact Co-Field Director Dani Bernstein, cell (909) 561-3738.
By MICHAEL SYMONS • GANNETT STATE BUREAU • viaDailyrecord.com January 5, 2010
TRENTON — A vote has been scheduled for Thursday in the state Senate on a bill allowing gay couples to marry in New Jersey, state Senate President Richard J. Codey announced Tuesday afternoon.
A Senate vote had been expected in mid-December but was postponed when it was apparent the measure didn’t have the 21 votes needed to pass. It’s still not clear whether the bill will pass, but Codey said the bill will be considered.
“Given the intensely personal nature of this issue, I think the people of this state deserve the right to a formal debate on the Senate floor,” said Codey, D-Essex. “”I’d like to commend both sides of this issue for their passionate advocacy thus far and the heartfelt testimony that we have heard.”
Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr., D-Camden, announced last week that the Assembly Judiciary Committee would not hold a hearing on the bill, as had been expected. But he said he would send the bill to the Assembly floor for a vote, bypassing a hearing, if the Senate approves the bill.
The Senate has 22 Democrats — one short now that former Sen. Dana Redd has become Camden’s mayor — and 17 Republicans. Just one Republican senator, Bill Baroni Jr. of Mercer County, in expected to support the bill. But a handful of Democrats also oppose.
URGENT: The Assembly has announced there will not be an Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing on the marriage equality bill, as had been anticipated, this Monday, January 4, 2010. Unacceptable. Time for legislative action is winding down and it is urgent, to say the least, that we keep up the pressure.
This Monday, January 4, 2010 at 10:00 am, Garden State Equality and our partner organizations are holding an urgent rally and lobby day for marriage equality at the State House. Meet Monday at 10:00 am in front of Garden State Equality’s Trenton office across from the State House – our Trenton office is at 110 West State Street. Park at the nearby Trenton Marriott garage, 1 West Lafayette Street.
If you were planning to testify at the hearing, come to our rally and speak your heart out. We need a massive turnout on Monday. Key to that, dear members, is forwarding this email instantly, right now if you can, to every New Jerseyan you know, even if you can’t join us Monday.
Please forward this email right now to your relatives, your friends, other members of your organization, brother and sister congregants at your house of worship, and every list serv of which you are a member and every blog on which you write. To everyone as soon as possible. If you have any questions, contact Garden State Equality’s co-field director Dani Bernstein at Bernstein@GardenStateEquality.org.
Same-sex couples may get a nice holiday greeting from Asbury Park, N.J., with the city council set to endorse marriage equality, possibly on the morning of Christmas Eve.
Asbury Park city council members said Wednesday they plan to approve a resolution supporting marriage equality and may do so at a special meeting scheduled for December 24 to discuss an unrelated issue.
While granting marriage rights is up to the state — and New Jersey legislators are considering a marriage equality bill — the Jersey Shore resort town can send state lawmakers an important message, observers said.
“It’s very exciting,” Steven Goldstein, chair of gay group Garden State Equality, told the Asbury Park Press. “The expected passage of a resolution by Asbury Park for marriage equality really encapsulates all that New Jersey has to gain economically.” Because of the money that stands to be spent on weddings and tourism, marriage equality is not only morally right but “will be an engine of economic progress for all people,” Goldstein added.
District of Columbia Council member David Catania (Photo Credit: On Top Magazine)
City leaders in the District of Columbia are expected to approve a gay marriage bill when they meet on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s vote is the last stop on a long journey to legal gay marriage in the District that began last spring with passage of a gay-marriage recognition law. The bill’s long incubation period has thoroughly aired out detractors’ grievances, leaving little room for surprises.
Still, backers are preparing a large rally on Monday.
The show of support is being organized by the Campaign for All DC Families, DC Clergy United and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest advocate for gay rights. Supporters are expected to gather at 7PM for two hours at the Kennedy Recreation Center.
Whether city leaders approve Council member David Catania’s gay marriage bill is not up for debate; it will. At a December 1 first reading of the bill, only 2 councilors opposed the legislation: Yvette Alexander and Marion Barry, the District’s former mayor. The remaining 11 members voted in favor of the bill.
Yet, obstacles remain. The most immediate is whether Congress – which has final say on laws approved in the District – will move against the bill. Lawmakers have 30 days to respond.
Longtime community activist Bob King believes Congress should act against the bill. He told media sources last week that at least 6 members of Congress have agreed to speak with him on the issue. King appears to be targeting pro-gay rights lawmakers, including Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and New Mexico Representative Martin Heinrich. Both men have publicly announced their support for gay marriage.
King is also a member of Stand4Marriage.com, the conservative Christian group founded in the spring by Bishop Harry Jackson, minister at the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland.
Jackson has become the face of the anti-gay marriage movement in the District. His group is suing to get a question prohibiting gay marriage on the ballot after the city’s Ethics Board ruled such a measure would violate the city’s Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The gay marriage bill is also opposed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. While the bill would not require religious organizations to perform gay weddings, the church has threatened to shut off programs serving the poor and homeless if the city does not include an exclusion that would allow individuals, including private business owners, to refuse to provide goods and services related to the nuptials of gay couples. Gay activists accused the church of trying to “blackmail the city.” Lawmakers, however, say they are open to a compromise that would keep the archdiocese’s Catholic Charities as a city contractor.
Should Congress decide to ignore the issue, gay couples in the District might be reserving wedding chapels as early as January 15.
Even in the midst of the most intense civil rights battle ever waged in New Jersey, there are junctures to pause, reflect and express gratitude. Today, at the end of an historic week, is one such juncture. This week, we made in history and you made it happen. If I could reach out through the computer screen to give you a hug of appreciation right now, I would.
For the first time in New Jersey, a legislative body – the Senate Judiciary Committee – passed a marriage equality bill. The bill now moves forward in the legislature. More than 4,000 pro-marriage equality activists from Garden State Equality and other organizations came to the State House in the last two weeks. That includes more than 1,300 of us who were there last Monday, the day of the Judiciary Committee vote. It’s the culmination of perhaps the most meteoric growth any organization in New Jersey has ever experienced.
One year ago, Garden State Equality had 14,000 core members. Today we have more than 55,000 core members as measured by a very high standard – those of you who have taken two actions in the last six months for equality.Our numbers and our passion have spun legislators’ heads. Several told us they’d never seen a show of force like ours collectively – and that it made all the difference in the world. They’re right. Look at the external obstacles, not of our doing, we’ve had to overcome in the last month: Governor Corzine, whose administration is working hard for equality and deserves our deepest gratitude, unfortunately lost his election. That gave marriage equality opponents a phony pretext with some legislators.No one in his or her right mind believes November’s election had anything to do with marriage equality. With this economy, it was an impossible year for incumbents everywhere.
Parenthetically, if you add up the votes for the gubernatorial candidates who favored marriage equality versus those who didn’t, we won a majority.Then last week, there was the New York loss, another factor our opponents threw in our face. Heck, I grew up in New York. The Hudson River might as well be a thousand miles wide. On LGBT rights, New Jersey is a leader.Any other state’s equality movement might have shriveled after that one-two punch. Many of the pundits speculated that a committee wouldn’t even hear our bill. But like the true New Jerseyans we are, we got up off the mat, summoned our strength, got that Committee hearing and won it. So much about living and thriving, whether for an individual, organization or entire community, is not whether you avoid the punches life brings you.
It’s about whether you get up from the mat and never stop trying to do what’s right. Resilience is everything, and our community, which has faced discrimination in hospitals and from employers at the hands of the civil union law, and must also deal with rejection from society – sometimes even from our own families – is the most resilient in the world. We’re still standing and we will win marriage equality.Standing at the front of the line for equality are many people and organizations besides Garden State Equality who richly deserve recognition. We’ll recognize all our heroes soon enough. But for now, let’s not let another day pass without expressing our love to the prime Senate sponsors of the marriage equality bill, Loretta Weinberg and Raymond Lesniak, who have gotten the bill this far.
Loretta, of course, is our guardian angel – the greatest champion of equality New Jersey has ever seen. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard she’s worked for this legislation. Her place in our hearts is irreplaceable. Raymond has the courage of his convictions like few others we’ve worked with: When he decides something is the correct thing to do to make our society a kinder, fairer place, nothing stops him. And let’s not forget Senator Bill Baroni, the Republican who voted for the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the committee, as he announced “I am the first legislator in state history to say, ‘On the issue of marriage equality, I vote yes,’” chills went down our spines and our feet rose in ovation.
I’d like to thank one organization among many – I’ll get to the others in the coming days – for being our tireless partners for equality. Blue Jersey, the blog of the state’s progressive activist community, has been the unwavering, pure and passionate voice for marriage equality on the web. If you don’t regularly visit Blue Jersey – it’s at www.BlueJersey.com – you must. There you will find some of the most effective champions of marriage equality anywhere in America. Special thanks go to all the Blue Jersey front-pagers, including Blue Jersey’s editorial director Rosi Efthim.
Now if I may digress. In the heat of a campaign, people on both sides get, well, heated. This week, activists protested in front of legislators’ homes and at personal events – yes, those on the other side did it too. That’s a no-no for everyone. People who give their lives to public service, whether they agree with us or not, are entitled to zones of privacy. It so happened that some protesters in front of homes wore Garden State Equality shirts or buttons. As I wrote in an apology to one legislator: “I don’t care how important an issue is to any one individual, organization or greater community.
Garden State Equality will never tolerate that kind of invasion of personal privacy. “From recent Garden State Equality events, more than 10,000 people now have our Equality buttons and more than 4,000 people have our Equality t-shirts. As one newspaper reported today, I had emailed some not to hold a vigil at a legislator’s house when I found out about it, and they went forth anyway – wearing Garden State Equality shirts and making it look like we endorsed the protest. Here’s the interesting thing about civil rights organizations in America: When an organization becomes so big and fulfills its founder’s dreams, it grows out of the founder’s control.
That’s the way it should be. A successful organization evolves into a movement where thousands of flowers bloom on their own, changing from a top-down structure to an true grassroots phenomenon. I wish I personally knew all of our 55,000 members. I knew each of our members by name and face for the first couple of years. But now, by God, we’re not just an organization anymore. We’re a movement – the most passionate and active civil rights movement New Jersey has seen in the lifetimes of many of us. With that comes a responsibility for smart activism that goes up to the line but never crosses it.
We must always hold ourselves to a higher standard.Passion for our cause and respect for one another, even for our opponents and for those on the fence, are not mutually exclusive. That combination has been a hallmark of Garden State Equality’s success. Since our organization’s founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 210 LGBT civil rights laws at the state, county and local levels – a national record.Thus dear members, New Jersey owes its leadership in LGBT civil rights to each of you.
On behalf of all of us on Garden State Equality’s board of directors, I wish you and yours a happy holiday season, including with the start of Chanukah tonight. Chag urim sameach, Eid Mubarak, Happy Kwanzaa and Merry Christmas!
With love and appreciation,
Steven Goldstein, Chair and CEO Garden State Equality”
URGENT: The New Jersey Senate is deferring tomorrow (Thursday’s) vote on the marriage equality bill at the request of bill sponsors Senators Loretta Weinberg and Raymond Lesniak. Garden State Equality SUPPORTS this development.
MEMBERS:
As planned, we are still meeting in Trenton tomorrow at 9:308:00 am for what will now be a lobby day. Please join us. Again, that’s tomorrow, Thursday, December 10th at 9:30 am at our Trenton office, 110 West State Street. Please forward this email to all your friends, list servs and Facebook groups.
Senators Weinberg and Lesniak want to give the Assembly a chance to weigh in, beginning with an Assembly hearing. Senators Weinberg and Lesniak also believe, correctly so, that the more than 150 people who wanted to testify at this past Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, but could not because the hearing ran eight hours long, should have a chance to testify before the legislature.
Below is the statement from the prime sponsor of the marriage equality bill, Senator Loretta Weinberg:
“This afternoon, Senator Ray Lesniak and I requested that Senate President Richard J. Codey hold Senate Bill 1967. We also requested that Speaker Joseph Roberts schedule a meeting for the Assembly Judiciary Committee on A2978, popularly known as the Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act.
“In light of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s historic passage of S1967, Senator Lesniak and I believe that the public needs another opportunity to engage legislators on this issue. Moreover, the Senate committee has substantially amended its version to include sweeping, additional protections for religious institutions. We believe that members of the public need to be afforded an additional opportunity to debate this new provision as well.
“Tuesday’s Senate hearing was extraordinary. Hundreds of citizens lined up outside the committee chambers to offer testimony on behalf of, and in opposition to, the proposed legislation. Under the leadership of Chairman Sarlo, who conducted one of the most thoughtful and fair-minded hearings in which either of us has ever participated, the committee spent seven hours hearing from scores of New Jerseyans. We had to turn away another 150 witnesses for want of time.
“In addition to the committee hearing, thousands of citizens, and dozens of religious and secular organizations, have engaged our members in a thoughtful and productive dialogue on marriage equality.
“Accordingly, as sponsors of S1967, we asked Senator Codey to postpone full Senate consideration of the Marriage Equality Act until the Assembly Speaker has an opportunity to review scheduling the Assembly Judiciary Committee for a hearing.
“We thank Senator Codey for his leadership. Marriage equality is a difficult and challenging question for members from both sides of the aisle. Throughout this debate, he has been balanced and evenhanded in his treatment of all Senators. For this, he has our deepest gratitude.”
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