At precisely 12:01 this morning, dozens of same sex couples formed a queue and awaited their opportunity to join together in lawful matrimony. New Jersey is now the 14th state allowing same-sex marriage. Bride and groom pairs from Boonton to Wayne, and up and down the garden state parkway tied the ceremonial knot while enjoying their newly minted legally married status.
One Asbury Park attorney and councilwoman, Amy Quinn, who married her partner, Heather Jensen on the boardwalk just moments into the start of the new day’s legislation commented, “To be able to get married in my home state, in a town that I adore, to be able to get married by friends, with friends, around friends, it’s such an amazing experience.” NJ.com notes that Quinn and Jensen have been a pair for a decade, and that they were married in New York this June. They were not sure that they’d be able to marry in New Jersey. However, according to NJ.com, “when the Supreme Court denied an attempt to delay a lower court’s order that New Jersey begin allowing same-sex couples to wed Oct. 21,” same-sex couples were let through the red tape and were allowed to legally marry in the state.
The decision isn’t finalized, but gay and lesbian marriages are happening while the lower court’s appeal is being considered, and there is a small chance that the Supreme Court could possibly prohibit gay marriage after hearing the arguments in January. However, legal experts consider that relative to the current situation, that possibility is highly unlikely.
At 9 pm on Sunday night Essex County Superior Court Judge Nancy Sivilli signed judicial waivers allowing the couples to skip the mandated waiting period between getting the marriage license and getting married. Couples who were waiting to marry in the state of New Jersey who were already married in another state didn’t have to wait. Couple Gabriela Celeiro and Elizabeth Salerno got their judicial waiver because they “didn’t want to wait one minute longer than absolutely necessary.” Salerno commented, “I want to get something in paper that this actually happened,” and she headed to Newark’s city hall with her soon to be wife Elizabeth Salerno, as they both waited to be married by Mayor Booker.
Mayor Booker was marrying the first couples when a protester started screaming, “This is unlawful in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ!” Mayor Booker, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last week, saw that the disruptor was removed, and he coolly continued, “not hearing any substantive and worthy objections,” as applause overwhelmed the moment.
Image Credit: The Blaze & NJ.com