Christie’s Contradiction

There seems to be a glaring incongruity in what has been Governor Chris Christie’s approach in dealing with two major issues that have recently come before the New Jersey Legislature and his office.  The disputes in question are unrelated to one another, except by the inexplicably dissimilar strategies with which Governor Christie has chosen to address them.
 


NJ Governor Chris Christie fields a question from
the audience at January's Town Hall Meeting in Bridgewater.

The first is the still-unresolved issue of gay marriage.  The second is the painful, but now-settled issue of school budgets.  The common thread that weaves these two disparate matters into a common pattern is the way that the governor has decided that they should be solved.
 
As to the controversy swirling around gay marriage, the Governor has decided that the final voice on the matter should be that of the New Jersey electorate via a state-wide referendum. 
 
Christie feels strongly about that, and has just vetoed a bill that would have placed the union of a gay couple on the same definitional level as that of a heterosexual couple.  The governor has consistently insisted on the notion that the public, not elected officials should make that choice.