New Jersey Governor Christie Apologizes For Linking Civil Rights To Same Sex Marriage Issue

One week after Governor Chris Christie raised the ire of civil rights leaders and his Democratic foes for saying people would have preferred to have a referendum on segregation in the South, tonight he apologized. “Anybody who was offended by what I said, if you’re listening out there tonight, I apologize for that,” he said on New Jersey 101.5’s monthly radio call-in show. “I didn’t mean to offend anybody, and if I did I’m sorry.” The Star-Ledger reports that the apology immediately sparked this statement from Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex): "The governor rightfully acknowledged the hurtful and insensitive nature of his remarks. Going forward, I now trust and expect that, as the legislature moves toward implementing marriage equality, the governor will respect the serious nature of the constitutionality of civil rights and equal protection under the law." The controversy came in response to the conflict over legalizing same sex marriage in New Jersey: Democrats want to do it by legislation; Christie would veto a bill and called for a referendum instead. At a Statehouse press conference today, the Republican governor attempted to clarify his remarks: “The political climate in the South didn’t give them the option to have a referendum back then,” he said. But in the process he drew more negative attention by calling Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), one of two openly gay state lawmakers, a “numbnuts," after the lawmaker compared him to segregationists. Tonight the governor said he got the term from his late mother and downplayed his use of colourful language. “I don’t know when people lost their sense of humour,” he said. “That was, I thought, a pretty light slap at a guy who compared me to George Wallace and Lester Maddox, who were two absolutely vile people in the political history of our country.”