“I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition.” - Tom Kean Jr.

America takes giant steps forward in guaranteeing LGBTQ rights and where are the Republican Party and Tom Kean Jr.?

The US Supreme Court this week handed down with an historic decision that effectively bans discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community in the workplace.  The day before the decision was announced, you could get married on Sunday and fired on Monday in 28 states. That is now not true in any state in the United States.

Polling has consistently shown support for LGBTQ rights at between 63 – 67%

Gallup has polled on LGBTQ rights issues since the landmark Obergfell vs. Hodges Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. Their polling has consistently shown support for LGBTQ rights at between 63 – 67%.  The American people have become increasingly comfortable with this concept. 

Corporate America has also gotten on board. I attended the Out & Equal Workplace Summit in Washington DC in 2019. I did so as a representative of a large multi-national bank along with over 6,000 other attendees. I spent three days listening to CEO’s and Heads of Diversity from companies as large and varied as Boeing, Hewlett Packard and Cracker Barrel talk about their support of the community and what their companies were doing to advance diversity and empowerment. There’s a long way to go until we achieve equality, but I saw steps in the right direction that week.

The current Republican platform is the exact same one that was used in 2016, one that opposes LGBTQ rights.  

So now that the United States of America has at least somewhat grown up on the issue, where is the Republican Party? They made their position very clear in releasing their 2020 party platform last week. The current Republican platform is the exact same one that was used in 2016, one that opposes LGBTQ rights.  

Direct quotes from their platform include “Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman … We do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal”, reaffirming their opposition to same-sex marriage. They’ve made it clear they want to overturn what is now supposed to be settled law.

The platform also states, in reference to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights act, “That same provision of law is now being used by bureaucrats … to impose a social and cultural revolution upon the American people by wrongly redefining sex discrimination to include sexual orientation or other categories.” The Supreme Court ruled just that this week. In fact, it was so obvious that the Court, controlled by conservative/Republican appointees, ruled 6-3 in its favor through a decision written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch.

So where do our congressional candidates stand on these issues? Tom Kean Jr., a supposed moderate, in 2004 was only one of nine New Jersey state senators to oppose a domestic partnership bill which would have granted a handful of legal protections to New Jersey same-sex couples. His reasoning at the time was that it would cost too much money to give them some of the same benefits that opposite-sex couples already received.

“I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition.” - Tom Kean Jr.

He voted against same-sex marriage in the legislature several more times over the course of next several years as well as against providing rights to same-sex families in New Jersey.  When he ran for the US Senate, he attacked his opponent for being too pro-LGBT. His spokesman said “Tom unequivocally believes marriage is between a man and a woman…He supports the traditional definition of marriage. And in 2013, he reiterated his position, “I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition.”

On an historic date when LGBTQ Americans were guaranteed protection against workplace discrimination, Congressman Tom Malinoswki of our 7th Congressional District, put out a statement,

“Every American deserves to be protected no matter who they love or how they identify”. From Tom Kean Jr, we got silence. - Congressman Tom Malinowski

Kean Jr. and the Republican party continue to be on the wrong side of history. We must vote against them in large numbers this fall to insure things continue to progress and along with what Amerians want.

Gregg Jacobs
Resident and voter, NJ 7th Congressional District

Notes:

https://thinkprogress.org/new-jersey-lawmaker-tom-kean-jr-congress-candidate-opposed-lgbtq-immigrants-66cf42b8313c/