Gay rights activist Steven Goldstein
has suggested that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's opposition to
gay marriage would disadvantage a run for the White House.
The Republican governor has repeatedly
ruled out a presidential run in 2012, but that hasn't ended a flurry
of speculation.
And in an op-ed appearing
Sunday in the Star-Ledger, Goldstein appears to suggest
that Christie could help himself by signing a bill legalizing gay
marriage in New Jersey.
Christie has previously cited his
religious faith as a basis for his opposition to marriage equality,
but he's not apposed to the state's civil unions law, which was
approved by the Legislature to remedy a state Supreme Court ruling
declaring the state's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional.
“Few people, not even Christie,
believe the civil union law actually provides equality,” Goldstein
writes. “Work with me, he says, to fix it.”
Goldstein notes that the Sunday start
of a gay marriage law in neighboring New York is bittersweet for New
Jersey couples.
“[S]ame-sex couples in New Jersey are
still denied that freedom – and that juxtaposition hurts like
hell.”
And he goes on to suggest that Christie
is more likely to get to the White House if he ended that pain for
gay and lesbian couples.
“If Chris Christie is thinking of
running for president on a platform of a more traditional America,
let him remember Kennedy's words,” he writes, referring to
then-Senator John F. Kennedy who said while campaigning: “I believe
in a president whose religious views are his own private affair,
neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon
him as a condition to holding that office.”
“Freedom depends on it,” Goldstein
adds, “and that includes the freedom to marry that New York begins
today.”