National
Clock is ticking for N.J. marriage bill
The only out lawmaker in the New Jersey Legislature said the state’s pending marriage legislation “could go either way” and cautioned against bringing the bill to a vote if supporters don’t think they have sufficient support.
Reed Gusciora, a gay Democrat and sponsor of the marriage bill in the Assembly, said in an interview with DC Agenda that prospects of passing the legislation dimmed after Gov. Jon Corzine (D) failed in his bid for re-election last month and following losses for same-sex marriage in Maine and New York.
“It could go either way,” he said. “A lot of legislators, unfortunately, are taking a second look at the issue. … There’s always an argument not to do it and to fall in line with these other states.”
Even so, Gusciora, who’s also deputy majority leader of the Assembly, said New Jersey has a chance of passing same-sex marriage because of the Garden State’s liberal leanings.
“It still has a shot because New Jersey, at the end of the day, is a fairly progressive state,” he said. “It’s just a matter of my colleagues voting for the bill, which otherwise they should have.”
Supporters of gay nuptials are under the gun to pass same-sex marriage. Corzine has said he’d sign marriage legislation if it reaches his desk, but his failure to win re-election means he’ll soon leave the governor’s mansion. On Jan. 19, his successor, Republican Chris Christie will take office, and he’s pledged to veto any same-sex marriage bill that passes the legislature.
On Monday, Christie reiterated his opposition to the marriage bill in response to criticism from rock star and New Jersey-native Bruce Springsteen, according to Newark’s Star-Ledger, although Christie’s opposition wasn’t as emphatic as it has been in the past.
“This is where the people of New Jersey obviously have differences of opinion,” Christie was quoted as saying. “There are lots of people who feel very strongly about same-sex marriage and believe it should be the law of the state, and there are lots of folks like me who believe that it shouldn’t.”
Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, declined to describe his organization’s efforts to pass the marriage legislation in the weeks before Christie takes office, saying he didn’t want to tip off opponents to his activities.
“I can inform your audience, which is mostly outside of New Jersey, or I could do what we’re doing, which is continue to work hard to win marriage equality and keep our strategy close to the vest, and that’s what I prefer to do,” he said.
Still, he said he would agree with Gusciora’s assessment that the marriage bill “could go either way,” calling it “an innocuous enough statement.”
“That can be interpreted as anything, so why not agree?” he said.
Gusciora said he thinks the legislature will take up the marriage bill in January when lawmakers return from the holiday recess. He noted that he’s expecting the Assembly to consider the legislation first, followed by action in the Senate.
The State Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved the marriage legislation, 7-6. A Senate floor vote on the bill was initially scheduled for last week, but postponed after supporters said they wanted to wait until the Assembly had public hearings.
Mike BeLoreto, Gusciora’s chief of staff, said he thinks the bill has “a good chance” of passing the Assembly, but in the Senate the situation is “still very close to call.”
“We obviously have more Democratic votes in the Assembly than they do in the Senate, so it gives us a wider margin if some members need to jump off for their own political or personal reasons,” BeLoreto said.
As for the Senate, BeLoreto said a favorable vote in the Assembly “will end up spurring some progress on the Senate side.”
Democrats hold a majority in the State Senate, 23-17. Senate President Richard Codey has said the bill lacks unanimous support among the Democratic caucus and Republican votes are needed to pass the legislation.
Charles Moran, a Log Cabin Republicans spokesperson, said his organization isn’t formally lobbying for the marriage bill because his group doesn’t have a chapter in New Jersey.
Nonetheless, he said he plans to send out an action alert to his group’s members in the state to encourage them to lobby their officials.
“We’re going to start sending out some blasts to all our internal lists of Republicans and say, ‘Contact these state senators and identify yourself as a Republican in support marriage equality,’” he said.
Moran said his group has identified five Senate Republicans that could vote to pass the bill. One is Bill Baroni, the Republican Judiciary Committee member who voted in favor of the legislation, and another is Jennifer Beck, who voted against the legislation in committee but said she’d consider voting for it on the Senate floor.
Gusciora said the bill should be enacted into law as a matter of fairness.
“We recognize Newt Gingrich’s three wives, Rudy Giuliani’s three wives and Britney Spears’ 72 hours of nuptials — and there are plenty of same-sex couples that have been together a lot longer,” Gusciora said. “They pay taxes like everyone else, they raise families, they’re allowed to adopt in this state, so it’s a matter of fairness.”
Still, Gusciora urged advocates not to hold a vote on the bill if support is uncertain.
The wide margin of failure of the marriage bill in the New York State Senate earlier this month, 24-38, spurred some people to question why a vote was taken if there wasn’t an assurance of greater support.
“I’m not into taking names,” Gusciora said. “We already know who’s against it, so I don’t think we have to take the vote. The other thing is that if there isn’t a vote, there’s always an opportunity to revisit the issue, so I would rather us not take the vote.”
Gusciora said the New Jersey state courts could take up the matter should lawmakers fail to act. While no marriage litigation is pending in New Jersey, Gusciora noted that someone could bring the issue before judges.
In 2006, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the legislature needed to create some form of relationship recognition for same-sex couples in New Jersey. In response, civil unions were enacted.
“[You] wouldn’t want conservatives to get to say, ‘You had your shot in the legislature, so why are you taking it to the courts?’” Gusciora said. “The court can always revisit the issue and say, ‘You didn’t go far enough — it should indeed be called marriage.’”
But if lawmakers fail to approve the marriage legislation before Jan. 19, Gusciora said it would be “unlikely” that same-sex marriage will happen in New Jersey legislatively before Christie leaves office.
“He said that he would veto the bill if it ever came to his desk, so it’s unlikely in the four or eight years he’ll be governor that he would sign it,” he said. “Things always change with everybody, but he was pretty emphatic.”
Goldstein said he didn’t want to comment on whether the marriage bill could pass during the Christie administration if lawmakers in the upcoming weeks don’t approve the legislation.
“We’re working day and night to pass marriage equality while Jon Corzine is governor,” Goldstein said.
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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