N.J. Senate president says he will not allow ballot vote on marriage

A day after a Democratic Assemblyman introduced a bill that would ask New Jersey voters to decide whether gay people should have the right to marry, Senate President Stephen Sweeney today issued a statement saying he would never support it. "I have firmly stated before and will say again now that I do not believe you put civil rights on the ballot, period," Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said in a statement today. "It is the job of elected officials to ensure that everyone is provided equal protection and equal rights under the law. We should not hide from that responsibility. We should embrace it." Sweeney was responding to the new bill sponsored by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), the state's first openly gay legislator.