Garden
State Equality, New Jersey's largest gay rights advocate,
announced Monday it would end donating to political parties. The new
policy comes just weeks after the New Jersey Legislature
overwhelmingly spurned a gay marriage bill.
The group is one of the nation's largest
to lobby lawmakers for gay rights and lists more than 65,000 active
members.
While lawmaker's failure to approve gay
nuptials was not listed as a reason for the new policy, the group did
mention the loss in its statement.
“The only LGBT civil rights law New
Jersey does not have is marriage equality,” the group said after
listing several gay rights milestones. “After the state voted down
a marriage bill earlier this year, Lambda Legal announced at a Garden
State Equality news conference that our side is going back to court.”
The new policy says the group will
donate to the campaigns of individual pro-gay rights candidates,
instead of political parties. The group has also asked members to do
the same.
“No political party has a record good
enough on LGBT civil rights that it can rightfully claim to be
entitled to our money on a party-wide basis,” Steven Goldstein,
chair of Garden State Equality, said in a statement. “No longer
will we let any political party take our money and volunteers with
one hand, and slap us in the face with the other when we seek full
equality.”
The push to legalize gay marriage in
the Garden State ran aground soon after Republican Chris Christie, a
gay marriage opponent, defeated Democratic Jon Corzine, who had
promised support for the gay marriage bill if reelected, for the
governor's mansion in November.