Another column on marriage in NJ, plus the Prop 8 trial

ETA: Now that the column is behind the pay wall, I’ve reposted it with permission over here.

I have another opinion piece up over at CentralJersey.com and in several of the group’s newspapers this week, this time about what it was like to see my own civil rights voted down. Here’s a sample:

Beyond all the legal implications, it’s a horrible feeling to know you’re second-class. Few people even know what it means to be “civil unioned,” but everyone knows what it means that our friends are married. Asking, “Will you join with me in a union that’s civilly recognized?” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as, “Will you marry me?” It’s clear segregation, and we’re on the losing end.

Read the rest over here, or buy The Princeton Packet (Tuesday edition) or The Register-News (on Thursday).

I took this shot at the NJ Senate vote in Trenton on Jan. 7, the moment after it was announced the bill failed.

In other marriage news, the Prop 8 trial in California has begun. There’s a fascinating live blog of it over at prop8trialtracker.com, and the log from day 1 is fascinating. Here’s one tidbit posted during the lunch recess:

[UPDATE] 12:47 It’s hard to think while this goes on. I’ve never before been on trial, but today every gay or lesgbian person in the country is on trial. The testimony brings up all of that “stuff” that I keep pretending I’ve left behind. I grew up near Knoxville knowing I was gay, but never wanting to be. I dated girls, just like Jeff [one of the plaintiffs] did. I hid from myself. I became an Orthodox Jew in LA and almost got married because I did not want to be gay. When Boies [a lawyer for the plaintiffs] asked Jeff if he’d be in a more loving, stable relationship if he married a woman, it was not a throw-away. That’s what the NOM [National Organization for Marriage] folks want you to believe. They want you to believe that if Jeff or me or so many others of us who were born homosexual would just marry a woman, the world would be a better place.

And of course let’s not forget The New York Times’ write-up.