Speaker Oliver calls comment an insult to those who died for civil rights in South
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
In a comment related to his call for a voter referendum on the proposal to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said Wednesday, “People would have been happy to have referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South.”
The governor, who on Tuesday called for a referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot that would ask voters to decide if the state should legalize same-sex marriage, also said he will veto the Democratic legislation to allow it when the proposal reaches his desk.
The comment that the civil rights movement of the 1960s could have been settled through a national or southern states voter referendum stunned Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D-Essex), who became the first African-American woman to head the lower house in 2010.
