You have scant "legacy" to leave from your short years as Governor. The magic you worked with the budget is a temporary fix that your successors may not match. Improvements to the DMV may or may not last, but don't amount to much as a legacy in any case. You need to leave this state with a clear mark of distinction that tells everyone, "I was here. I made a difference."
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You are uniquely well qualified to make that mark by introducing legislation to change the definition of marriage to permit gay or lesbian couples to marry legally in New Jersey. I know there is very little time to draft such legislation, and you won't be able to see it thru to passage. But the final wording of the law is something the Legislature will decide anyway. What you, uniquely, can do is get the ball rolling.
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We have just passed thru a bitterly divisive national election, in which the blue states, New Jersey among them, were outnumbered and pretty much vilified by the most regressive parts of the Nation. Let's "stick it to them" by saying,

"Yes, we're liberal. Yes, we're educated and progressive and modern. And we are going to do something you have to recognize as valid because of the 'full faith and credit' clause of the national Constitution. You don't control this country. Progressive forces may have suffered a setback, but we can change this country whether you like it or not. And we're sure that once you follow our lead, you will indeed like the decent and peaceful society that results."

Permit me to suggest the kind of thing you should say in a message transmitting your draft legislation to the Legislature. It doesn't have to be gold. It does have to be said. So get your legislative aides and speechwriters (if any) together IMMEDIATELY to draft same-sex marriage legislation and finalize a transmittal message. Here's the kind of thing I would like to hear you say.

"Marriage" is the name society gives to the legal recognition of a special relationship between two people. It encompasses both rights and responsibilities. It is premised on the understanding that stable, loving relationships are essential to the smooth functioning of society and of the individuals in it. Marriage provides mechanisms for decisions to be made by private persons that, absent marriage, would have to be made by the state. We would rather such decisions, such as those on extraordinary medical measures at the end of life, be made by a life partner who understands the values of his or her partner with certitude and will do what s/he knows to be the wishes of the person at issue. Government should step away from such matters. Marriage permits government to do so.
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Marriage also provides stability in the ownership of property and provides for consistent rules for the disposition of assets in the event of a disrupted relationship. It provides economic security without a "nanny state" butting into everything. Marriage bolsters family businesses and provides for their continuity by giving both partners security in their ownership position, guaranteed by the power of the state. Marriage is meant to be difficult to escape, as to induce people who are going thru rough times to stay together and work things out, because wise people recognized thousands of years ago that emotional relationships go thru ups and downs, and if you split up over some trivial matter now, you won't experience the joys and satisfactions of having persevered thru the hard times to find that there are good times again, on the other side. Government cannot make people stay together when love ends, but it can make people hold on to see if the relationship is truly over or is only going thru a bad time.
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There are those who say that marriage is for children. Not so. There are many married people who never have children. They are still fully and legitimately married. And marriage does not ensure that children will have a stable two-parent relationship to rely upon in growing up. Divorce happens -- entirely too often.
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Moreover, having one's own biological children is not the only way families form. A two-person marital household is itself a family, without more. But that does not mean that people who can't have their own children biologically can't have children. Society has created the institution of adoption, not just for the sake of children but also for the sake of adults who want to experience the rewards of raising a child. This state, like other states, has many more children waiting for adoptive parents than parents willing and able to adopt. Expanding marriage will expand the base of potential adoptive parents, and thus virtually guarantee that more of the children waiting to be adopted do in fact get adopted. That's important.
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Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes assert that homosexuality or lesbianism is a mental disorder, and society should neither recognize nor encourage mental disorders. There are at least two answers to that. First, it is not for government to cast aspersions on the quality of relationships. Are all heterosexual relationships healthy? Surely not. That does not mean that government should inquire into why heterosexuals wish to be married and not permit some people to marry because government disapproves of the reasons they want to be married. That's not government's business.
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The better answer, of course, is that science in recent years has shown that sexual orientation is NOT a disease nor even a choice but is a part of normal, natural variation among individuals, and may well be hard-wired in our brains from a very early age, the result of heredity.
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For a long time, society tried to deny "deviations" from the norm in a great many matters. Not so long ago, the schools of this state tried to change lefthanded kids to righthanded, on the mistaken notion that lefthanded was somehow wrong, and would make living in a righthanded world difficult. The word "sinister" is Latin for "left" (handed), and lefthandedness was for centuries seen as suspect, somehow not quite right. Today, however, there are lefthanded can openers and other devices to make lefthandedness easier, and we have stopped thinking of lefthandedness as a choice that society can change by force.
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When government tries to impose heterosexuality, it fails. All it succeeds in doing is making nonheterosexuals unhappy, miserable, devious, and dishonest. It induces people to try to be what they are not, and causes them to drag others into their unhappiness. I know. We try to live up to what we are told to be, but can't. We marry people we cannot fully love, and cheat them of the complete and unconditional love they so richly deserve. We cheat ourselves too, of the love we richly deserve as well. Society does not profit by making its citizens miserable.
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This Nation was founded on a set of principles brilliantly and powerfully set forth in the Declaration of Independence. The most unusual premise of that document may be that "the pursuit of happiness" is a natural right, which government must not interfere with. I believe that, and hope you do too.
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And so I ask the State of New Jersey to say to all the world that we recognize the right of gay and lesbian citizens to pursue happiness the best way they can, by seeking permanent loving relationships with someone they can really love, and the State of New Jersey will recognize those relationships and accord them the same dignity and respect as it does to heterosexual relationships: by solemnifying them in marriage.
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Legal marriage is more than a word, but the word "marriage" is important. Some people feel that only God, thru the church or other organized body of worship, can "marry" two people. Government can merely put its stamp of approval upon a civil contract conferring certain legal rights of one partner vis-a-vis another. Therefore all nonreligious legal marriages are only "civil unions", and it is enough to grant "civil unions" to gay or lesbian partners.
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Not so. Words have power, and equality before the law is a fundamental principle indispensable to our civilization. Everyone must be treated equally. So either a heterosexual "marriage" not blessed by a religious body must not be called "marriage" but only "civil union", or any "civil union" recognized by the state is properly to be called "marriage". "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck." Let's play no silly games with words. Legal marriage is civil union is "marriage". Let New Jersey have the integrity and, yes, guts, to call marriage "marriage", be it for heterosexual couples, gay couples, or lesbian couples.
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The legislation I offer today does not attempt in any way to influence or coerce any religious group to recognize as "married" people they do not wish to recognize as married. Religious marriage is assuredly not the business of the state. Legal marriage, however, assuredly IS the business of the state.
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And so I submit to you today legislation to eliminate the discriminatory provisions in our marriage laws that restrict marriage to a man and a woman, to permit two men or two women to marry equally with a mixed-gender couple. I ask that New Jersey join Massachusetts, another of the original Thirteen States that signed the Declaration of Independence, in extending, at long last, equal treatment to gay men and lesbian women -- but more: I ask that there be no residency restrictions on whom New Jersey will permit to be married in this great state. Let gay couples and lesbian couples from around the world come to New Jersey to be married. While they're here, they will see why we are proud to be New Jerseyans, and tell their friends that New Jersey is a place everyone should see. Tourism is a major industry in this state. Gay money and lesbian money is as green as anybody else's, and if New Jersey can make a tidy profit from doing justice, so much the better.

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:53 PM