June 15th, 2011
I may have misjudged Chris Christie when he won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey:
Christie is no friend of our community.
Statements he has now made to Piers Morgan suggest a man who is less antagonistic than I presumed.
While this is still a position that is a disappointment for New Jersey, where marriage seemed a likelihood a few years ago, I’m sure there are plenty of gay folk who would happily trade their governor for him.
What is interesting about this interview is that Christie felt no need to note that his view was “perhaps in disagreement with others in the party” nor did Morgan seem shocked by the “liberal” stance. And this bodes well for the future of our rights. While the current batch of clowns dancing around the calliope hoping to get the privilege of losing to Obama in 2012 are all dedicated to heterosexual supremacy, Christie’s position gives recognition – and permission – to the growing number of Republican politicians who are abandoning the rhetoric of sin.
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Reed Boyer
June 15th, 2011
I think the initial assessment was spot-on. “No friend.”
TampaZeke
June 15th, 2011
So he’s a little bit less of an asshole than previously thought. Woo hoo!
Still, I WOULD trade him for my governor. I’d trade Super Satan for my governor. He’s only about half as evil as Rick Scott.
Erin
June 15th, 2011
I still don’t like him.
Jerry
June 16th, 2011
As soon as they begin with “my church” I have to interrupt and ask them if they are Roman Catholic, would they accept Papist Union as long as it has the same legal rights as marriage, or Baptist union. If it’s a second or more marriage, would they accept Adultery Union? Christian churches teach that. It’s in the Bible.
Amicus
June 16th, 2011
hummm…when he says, “I believe it is a ‘sin’, but I’m going to vote for it anyway, because I could be wrong”, then he might be a true leader.
Throbert McGee
June 16th, 2011
I don’t think that would really be an appropriate response to this particular interview, though, because Christie didn’t use the phrase my church when explaining why he supported “same-sex civil unions” but only “one man, one woman marriage.”
In other words, he didn’t invoke “my church” in the discussion of what the secular government’s policy should be, but only when discussing his personal views on whether homosexuality is a “sin.”
However, I agree with your general point, that “Shouldn’t you be insisting that second marriages should legally be called Adultery Unions?”, is a very logical response when Christians use “my church says…” in the SSM debate.
Throbert McGee
June 16th, 2011
Incidentally, this interview definitely seems to cross the line into “Excommunicate-able” territory, and it’ll be interesting to see if any conservative bishops and other senior clergy attempt to use the threat of formal excommunication against Christie.
From the RCC’s point-of-view, they’d probably rather save the excommunication threats as their weapon of last resort just in case the NJ legislature passed a same-sex marriage law and Christie showed signs that he was thinking about signing it instead of vetoing it.
On the other hand, the RCC’s position is that Catholics should equally oppose same-sex civil unions just as much as SSM. And while there’s essentially zero chance that a rank-and-file Catholic layperson would be excommunicated for the offense of publicly supporting civil unions, for a politician of Christie’s prominence to do so could be a different matter.
Throbert McGee
June 16th, 2011
Although off the top of my head, the only case I know of where American Catholics were formally excommunicated over the SSM issue did involve “rank-and-file laypeople”!
(I’m thinking of the lesbian couple who traveled to Canada to get married, and upon returning home, they gave news interviews in which they emphasized that they were gay and Roman Catholic and that the thought the church was wrong.)
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