New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and NOM President Brian Brown released statements Friday stating their disappointment with the New Jersey Supreme Court's unanimous decision to allow gay and lesbian couples to begin marrying on Monday while a case challenging the state's ban on same-sex marriage proceeds.

The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in early January.

(Related: New Jersey Supreme Court won't delay start of gay marriage.)

Michael Dewniak, a spokesman for Christie, said that the governor will comply with the ruling.

“While the governor firmly believes that this determination should be made by all the people of the State of New Jersey, he has instructed the Department of Health to cooperate with all municipalities in effectuating the order,” Dewniak said in a statement.

Gay rights proponents cheered the news but said that they would continue to push lawmakers to override Christie's 2012 veto of a bill legalizing marriage for gay couples in the state.

“Today the New Jersey Supreme Court has stood on the side of equality and refused to delay the freedom to marry,” Troy Stevenson, executive director of Garden State Equality, said in an emailed statement. “We have been fighting an uphill battle for the dignity of marriage for years and we are finally within sight of the summit. However, this is not the time to rest, it is the time to recommit, it is the time to pull out all the stops. We have to continue to push because we are in the fight of our lives. While we have faith in the courts, we can not control what happens there. What we can do is demand that action be taken at the state house. We will not rest until we guarantee the freedom to marry to every New Jerseyan, and we are certain that it can never be taken away.”

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of marriage equality, also criticized the ruling.

“It is extremely disappointing that the New Jersey Supreme Court has allowed the ruling of an activist judge to stand pending its appeal through the court system,” NOM President Brian Brown wrote on the group's website. “The definition of marriage is something that should be decided by the people of New Jersey themselves, not by any judge or court. New Jerseyans should have the right to vote on this issue just as voters in nearly three dozen other states have done. In addition, the decision to allow same-sex 'marriage' to proceed even while the law is being tested in court is unfair both to the voters of the state and to same-sex couples themselves. If the state Supreme Court were to uphold marriage as they should do, then the validity of the 'marriages' that will be performed starting next week will be called into question. Further, the decision opens the door to a possible federal court ruling similar to what occurred in California in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal which held that once a state grants same-sex 'marriage' rights it can never take them away. All in all, today's ruling is another sad chapter in watching our courts usurp the rights of voters to determine issues like this for themselves.”

(Related: Cory Booker plans to marry 10 gay couples on Monday.)