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(108,903 posts) Mon Jan 23, 2012, 04:02 PM Jan 2012

N.J. Gov. Christie nominates openly gay high court justice

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/01/23/n-j-gov-christie-nominates-openly-gay-high-court-justice/

Chris Christie, the often colorful governor of New Jersey, has surprised both allies and opponents of the LGBT community today by nominating an openly gay justice to his state’s Supreme Court, Gay City Newsis reporting.

“A few minutes ago, just before announcing his two new Supreme Court nominees, Governor Christie called me on my cell phone to tell me he is nominating Bruce Harris to the New Jersey Supreme Court,” Garden State Equality chair, Steven Goldstein said Monday. “As I told the Governor right then and there, you could have picked me up off the floor.”

Harris — who is the mayor of Chatham Borough N.J. — will be the third African American justice on the bench, but the first openly gay justice, according to Goldstein. According to the Victory Fund, Harris is the nation’s first openly gay Republican non-incumbent elected mayor. New Jersey was the first state with an openly gay governor after then-governor James McGreevey came out as gay while in office in 2004. New Jersey currently has two openly gay Assembly members: Reed Gusciora and Tim Eustace.

“When I met with Governor Christie in 2010 at his request, he told me that though we would differ on some issues like marriage equality, he viewed the LGBT community as an important part of New Jersey, and that he wanted his Administration to have a good working relationship with Garden State Equality. That has been the case every step of the way,” Goldstein said. “To be clear, the Governor and his staff were invaluable in helping us pass the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, the nation’s strongest anti-bullying law that the governor signed in January 2011.”