NJ gay marriage advocates struggle on

Marsha Shapiro and Louise Walpin are the gentle, candid icons of the New Jersey gay marriage movement, discussing in television ads and Internet videos the discrimination they faced raising four children.
But Thursday, the amiable Middlesex County couple suddenly found themselves under a gag order as they stood in a gantlet of gay activists lining the hallway outside the Senate. Lieutenants of Garden State Equality, on red alert for the media, swooped in and politely halted several attempts at an interview. Media inquiries were referred to the group’s leader, Steve Goldstein.

A vote to legalize same-sex marriage by the full Senate was canceled when it became clear that it would go down in defeat — and taking the national gay rights movement with it, at least for the foreseeable future. The Senate punted the controversial bill to the Assembly, where advocates are hoping to win and eventually corner the resistant senators with some late-stage momentum. It’s a long shot at best.  

"I can’t in any way, shape or form guarantee them [Assembly members] that it will pass at this point," said Senate President Dick Codey, who was handicapping the bill’s chances of passage in the Senate if it wins approval in the Assembly.

Goldstein’s group also was embarrassed by a series of pro-gay-marriage rallies at legislators’ homes and work sites, and in the case of Republican Minority Leader Thomas H. Kean Jr., showing up at his 11-year-old daughter’s piano recital Tuesday.

Several senators bristled at the tactics, saying that the group had gate-crashed into the lawmakers’ privacy zones.

"Would you want them on your property?" replied Sen. Shirley Turner, a Mercer County Democrat who was not expected to vote for the bill. She said the incident only "further entrenched" her opposition.

Goldstein issued an apology to Kean that was posted on political Web sites, saying he was "sickened" by the protest, and that he did not authorize it. Goldstein suggested that some overzealous supporters freelancing outside the control of their organization staged the protests — the group distributed 4,000 T-shirts and 10,000 buttons, and not all of them are formal Garden State Equality members. He also noted that gay-marriage opponents picketed the birthday party/fund-raiser for Republican Sen. Bill Baroni, who supports the bill.

"People on both sides get carried away,’’ Goldstein said.