A little over five years ago, there occurred an important milestone for the gay/lesbian bisexual/transgender community in New Jersey. On Jan. 13, 1992, the New Jersey Legislature passed Bill A-634/S-3758, the amendment to the Law Against Discrimination which added the words “sexual and affectional orientation,” assuring us protection against discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit. That bill and its predecessor bills had been in committee for eight years.
The A-634 Task Force, a group of about 25 people, with the guidance of the New Jersey office of the American Civil Liberties Union (and the help and active work of many citizens and groups, both gay and non-gay), planned and executed the various steps which led to the passage of the bill. I am very proud to have been a part of that group.
However, there is a part of the story – the other side of the story – which has not been widely publicized. Through what I consider to be blatant homophobia on the part of one or two people, our victory almost didn’t happen.
It was the final session of the final day of a lame-duck legislature. The bill had been put to a vote first in the Senate, where we believed it had less support than in the Assembly. The bill passed. The procedure is that the proper bill jacket is typed up and the bill is moved from the Senate to the Assembly, to be brought up for a vote.
Those of us who were sitting in the Assembly gallery were wondering when the vote would take place. Hours passed, and the Assembly voted on other bills and spent time giving praise to various people who had been appointed to commissions or were retiring. Still more time passed, and no vote. It became obvious that the speaker of the Assembly was about to end the session. Meanwhile, the then-president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition was frantically gesturing to the assemblyman who had sponsored the Bill. Finally, he responded and conferred with the coalition president. Just as the gavel was about to fall, the assemblyman hurried up to talk with the speaker. This was followed by a few staff members running back and forth, while the Assembly continued with even more testimonials and accolades. We were becoming worried and anxious.
What we didn’t know, and later learned, was that a staff member of the Assembly speaker had apparently deliberately lied by informing the speaker that the Senate had failed to pass the bill, thus preventing it from coming up for a vote in the Assembly. When the Assembly speaker was told that the bill had, in fact, been passed by the Senate, he conferred with the Office of the Senate President to verify this. The intrigue continued. The Assembly copy of the bill was nowhere to be found. It had mysteriously disappeared. Throughout this ordeal, those of us in the gallery had become gravely concerned about the future of this legislation for which we had worked so hard.
Later, we also learned that, with the help of a staff member of Senate President Lynch and a staff member of Governor Florio, the Senate copy was quickly reproduced, a new bill jacket was prepared, and the bill was rushed to Assembly Speaker Doria, who had been keeping the Assembly in session long enough for the bill to reach him and be introduced for a vote. Happily, the bill passed.
A few days later, the Assembly copy of the bill was found in the back of a desk drawer in an empty office, upstairs in the Statehouse. We can only surmise that it was placed there by a person(s) so filled with hatred and homophobia that he/she/they deliberately lied, and deliberately hid the bill in hopes that it would not become law.
Many people worked hard on this endeavor – with visits to members of the Legislature, phone calls to the members of both the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees, and phone calls and letters to the other members of the Senate and Assembly. We had the help and support of P-FLAG, clergy of all faiths (including Episcopal Bishop Spong and Morristown Unitarian Fellowship Minister Paul Ratzlaff and many other prominent clergy), labor unions, local politicians, civic organizations, and many private citizens. All of this effort could have been sabotaged because of the deceit and hatred of one or two homophobes. Fortunately, that did not happen.
— David Morris is a former President of Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County and Chair of the Legal Committee of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition and Personal Liberty Fund.
Revised November 28, 2003