Her son, Joseph, is the Chairman of the Monmouth County Republican Party.

Ruth was born in the Bronx 81 years ago.  She lived in Middletown for 50 years and was the owner of Monmouth Day Camp for 57 years with her surviving husband Joseph T.  Together they raised 5 children and touched the lives of thousands more.  Ruth’s 12th grandchild is due to Joe and Jackie next month.

Visitation will be Wednesday and Thursday, 2-4 and 7-9 at the John F. Pfleger Funeral home, 115 Tindall Rd., Middletown.  A Funeral Liturgy will take place on Friday morning, 10:30, at St. Mary’s Chapel, 26 Leonardville Rd, Middletown.

Middletown – February 21… Today, Joe Kyrillos applauded Governor Chris Christie’s third straight balanced budget as a blueprint for America’s future.

“Bob Menendez and his colleagues in the Senate could learn something from the tough choices we’re making to fix New Jersey’s finances,” Senator Joe Kyrillos said.

“It’s been over 1,000 days since the U.S. Senate has passed a budget. And, while we balance our budget here in New Jersey, Washington gives us trillion dollar plus deficits - kicking the can down the road spending money on the backs of our children and grandchildren. That kind of record is unacceptable and it needs to change.”

Governor Christie and his allies, including Senator Kyrillos, have led the fight to cap property taxes, reduce spending and reform New Jersey’s broken pension system – the very same issues that are going unaddressed in Washington and contributing to our growing $15.3 trillion in national debt.

When Governor Christie took office in 2010, the state faced a budget shortfall of over $13 billion – today that shortfall is zero.

Senator Kyrillos continued, “Today is proof positive that the New Jersey comeback has, in fact, begun. A lot of people doubted it could be done, but we did it – we are making the tough decisions that need to be made – and it is long past time we did the same in Washington. It is time for the American comeback.”

“While Bob Menendez is offering more of the same: more spending, more taxes and more debt, I am running on my record of fiscal responsibility and real reforms that have reigned in spending without adding extra burdens to New Jersey families.”

Since Bob Menendez was appointed fill Jon Corzine’s seat in the Senate, the national debt has jumped from $8.1 trillion to $15.3 trillion, the annual deficit has grown from $250 billion to over $1 trillion, and unemployment has risen from 4.7% to 8.3%.

“The status quo isn’t working. It is time for New Jersey to show Washington how real leadership works.  It is working in New Jersey.  It will work in Washington.”

Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr., 51, served as chairman of Governor Chris Christie’s 2009 gubernatorial campaign and has played a key leadership role in moving the Governor’s agenda through the legislature.  Kyrillos is married to Susan Doctorian Kyrillos and they live in Middletown with their children Max and Georgia. He began serving New Jersey’s 13th Legislative District in 1988 when he was elected to the General Assembly. After spending two terms in the Assembly he was elected to the Senate where he has served since 1993.  In addition to his official duties, the Senator is employed as Senior Managing Director of Colliers International, the commercial real estate services firm with offices in New York and Parsippany. He is also an advisor to the Newport Capital Group in Red Bank, NJ.

It is my pleasure, and my duty, to present to you my budget for the year ending June 30, 2013.

Two years ago, when I entered this chamber for the first time, the fiscal condition of our state was as dire as it had been for decades.  Hope was low.  Pessimism seemed like a permanent state of mind.  My thoughts wandered back to my inaugural – to why I wanted this job in the first place.  On Inauguration Day, I said, “I asked to serve, because I believe we can do it.”

I did believe, even in those difficult days, that real leadership could turn New Jersey around.  In those darker days of recession, we began our journey together toward the New Jersey Comeback with some hard choices, some very hard choices.  We took those first steps together – we knew what we had to do.

We had to get our budget under control, and so we cut spending – not spending growth, but the actual dollars spent by state government – two years in a row.  We were able to preserve and fund essential priorities, but it was the first time in decades that real spending had actually been cut two years in a row.

As you know, we took other steps as well – reforming pensions and health benefits and capping the growth of property taxes and the interest arbitration awards that drive them.

There was one more thing we needed to begin the turnaround of the state we love.  We had to feel good about ourselves again.  We had to believe in each other again.  We had to dig down deep into our well of Jersey strength and restore our confidence.  To do this for our state and for each other, there were two indispensible elements – leadership and truth. 

Both require courage.  Both must come from what we feel from within.  Both could lead us to better days.  For those of you in this chamber, and you know who you are, who gave both to our state and its citizens – I say thank you.  To the millions of New Jerseyans who gave both to our state – I am in your debt.  To those who have yet to give, there is good news.  It is not too late – because the New Jersey Comeback has just begun.  Resolve today to join us in the tough choices which leadership and truth inexorably lead us to and join us now.  End the nay saying – join us to accelerate the New Jersey Comeback this year.

I said at the time that these tough choices would pave the way for better ones in the future.

You see, because our previous tough choices have indeed made a difference.  Those budgets for Fiscal Year ‘10 and Fiscal Year ’11 were balanced – without raising taxes.  Since I took office, we as a state have added nearly 60,000 private-sector jobs. And 2011 was the best year of job growth since the year 2000 and places New Jersey in the top third among the states.

In these last two years, we have begun to move our unemployment rate in the right direction – down, from 10.1% when I was sworn in to 9% today.

Today, it is time to continue making those better choices.  Today, we will both maintain our fiscal discipline, and drive New Jersey into a new era of growth.  Today, it is time to put the New Jersey Comeback into high gear.

Read the entire budget address by clicking here.

In New Jersey it is a crime to solemnize a marriage without a license.  Anyone who presides over a marriage ceremony for a couple who does not have a license is subject to a $500 fine and up to six months in jail.

Government did not always control marriage, according to Stephanie Coontz, an author who teaches history and and family studies and Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.

In a November, 2007 OpEd piece published in the New York Times, Taking Marriage Private, Coontz said that for most of Western history, the government was not involved in marriage.  Rather than an ‘institution,” marriage was a private contract between families.  If parents approved on a marriage, it was valid.  Church or State had nothing to do with it.

For 16 centuries the Catholic Church deemed a couple to be married if they said they were.  Not until 1215 did the Church deem that a marriage ceremony had to take place in a church in order for a union to be “licit.”  Yet couples married illicitly had the same rights and obligations as those who went to the chapel.

Government didn’t get involved until the 16th century in Europe.  Coontz says the European laws were, in part, to protect parental control of marriages.

The American colonies required that marriages be registered, but in the mid-19th century state supreme courts ruled that public cohabitation was evidence of a valid marriage.  (Who knew that people cohabited publicly back then?)

In the late 19th century the United States began to nullify common-law marriages and control who could be married.

Marriage, and the laws governing it continued to evolve during the 20th century.  Interracial marriages were prohibited for whites, then they were allowed again.

As the entitlement culture emerged, marriage licenses became a determining factor in the distribution of benefits, inheritance, and health care.   Coontz said this made sense in the 1950’s because almost all adults were married.

But that is no longer the case.  When Coontz wrote her OpEd piece in 2007, she said that half of all adults ages 25-29 were unmarried and 40% of American children were born to unmarried parents.  Last week, The New York Times reported that as of 2009, 53% of births to American women under 30 were out of wedlock.

As out of wedlock births have become more common the stigma of “illegitimacy” has faded.  That’s one reason sited as a cause of the surge in births outside of marriage.  Another major reason sited by the mothers The Times interviewed is the government “safety net.”

The Times reporters Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise spoke to dozens of people in Lorain, Ohio, a blue-collar town west of Cleveland where the decline of the married two-parent family has been especially steep, with 63 percent of births to women under 30 occurring outside of marriage. The young parents of Lorain saidtheir reliance on the government safety net encouraged them to stay single and that they didn’t trust their youthful peers to be reliable partners. Many said they would like to be married — just not right now, and not to each other.

It seems pretty clear that government regulating marriage hasn’t worked.  It also seems pretty clear that government entitlement programs have taken a massive toll on both the institution of marriage and the institution of family.

You can watch it live here:

Tomorrow evening at 9PM, CNN will air a taped interview of Christie by Piers Morgan.

Angelini, who has been very supportive of the gay lobbying group was absent for the Assembly vote on the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act on Thursday.  The bill passed 42-33 with two Democrats voting NO.

Angelini was on vacation, celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary in Jamaica, according to Goldstein’s email.

Goldstein said that he and two other GSE members met with the Assemblywoman on Friday, February 10th in an attempt to persuade her to cut her vacation short in order to be present of the vote.  Angelini refused stating that the bill had the votes to pass anyway and in the unexpected event that it failed, it would be voted on again in a matter of weeks.

Goldstein, and “an avalanche of calls and emails” said it did not matter that the bill had enough votes to pass:

Dear members, as so many of you have told us through your avalance of calls and emails, it shouldn’t matter whether or not Mary Pat’s vote was needed.   She is elected to vote in the legislature, and certainly elected to vote on the biggest issues of the day – perhaps the biggest issue of all time to so many in her district like you.  If you are a public servant, there are absoluely times to have personal lives.   Was this really one of them, especially when the legislature will be on break in a month?

 

Goldstein said that the group was “deeply pained” by Angelini’s absence.

Goldstein said he received more calls and emails filled with “deep pain and anger” than he received after Sean Kean’s 2009 vote against a similar bill and Kean’s “remarkably insensitive speech” about that vote.  The calls and emails suggested that GSE extract a written promise from Angelini that she will vote to override Governor Christie’s veto and that she work on other Republican legislators to do the same.

Goldstein’s entire email can be read here.

Asked to comment, Angelini said she had not seen the email.  MMM forwarded it to her.  This post will be update if she comments.

In addition to the comments about Angelini, Goldstein praised Senator Jennifer Beck for her work in support of the gay marriage bill.  He also promised to make up for GSE’s endorsement of Angelini to Vin Gopal, one of Angelini’s opponents last November, in his upcoming race against Marlboro Councilman Frank LaRocca for the Monmouth County Democratic Chairmanship.

Calls for the establishment of an Ombudsman to enforce the Civil Union Law

Governor Chris Christie sent S-1, the Marriage Equality and Religious Exemptions Act, back to the legislature this afternoon with his conditional veto.

Christie issued the following statement regarding his action:

“Today, I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced – an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide. I continue to encourage the Legislature to trust the people of New Jersey and seek their input by allowing our citizens to vote on a question that represents a profoundly significant societal change. This is the only path to amend our State Constitution and the best way to resolve the issue of same-sex marriage in our state.

 “I have been just as adamant that same-sex couples in a civil union deserve the very same rights and benefits enjoyed by married couples – as well as the strict enforcement of those rights and benefits. Discrimination should not be tolerated and any complaint alleging a violation of a citizen’s right should be investigated and, if appropriate, remedied. To that end, I include in my conditional veto the creation of a strong Ombudsman for Civil Unions to carry on New Jersey’s strong tradition of tolerance and fairness. The Ombudsman will be charged with increasing awareness of the law regarding civil unions, will provide a clear point of contact for those who have questions or concerns and will be required to report any evidence of the law being violated. In this way, we can ensure equal treatment under the law.”

A copy of the Conditional Veto can be found here.

THIS SUNDAY, February 19th from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, Garden State Equality will hold a free wine-and-cheese open house in centrally located Red Bank for all our members, including you, to show you our love and appreciation.  No RSVP necessary, and please bring whomever you’d like.

Location: Hip and Humble Home, 58 Broad Street, Red Bank. 

On Sunday, this incredibly cool home furnishings store will donate 25 percent of your purchases to Garden State Equality’s campaign to override Governor Christie’s veto of the marriage equality bill.

212 LGBT civil rights laws at the state, county and local levels in New Jersey our founding in 2004 — and now we’re one of only three states in American history to pass a marriage equality bill under a Governor hostile to marriage equality.  Those are your achievements, dear members.  We thank you with all our hearts, and we hope to see you Sunday.

Photo Credit: SI.com