Earlier this week, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee voted to advance a bill that would ban ex-gay therapy for minors. Among the testimony the committee heard was a powerful pronouncement from high school senior Jacob Rudolph, who declared, “I am not broken, I am not confused, and I do not need to be fixed.” Rudolph has been petitioning Gov. Chris Christie (R) to announce his support for the bill, but Christie said after the committee’s vote that he was still undecided about the harmful treatment and wouldn’t make up his mind on the legislation until it arrived at his desk. Now he’s clarified that he opposes ex-gay therapy, according to spokesman Kevin Roberts:
ROBERTS: Gov. Christie does not believe in conversion therapy. There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his own prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth.
The statement stops just short of indicating whether he intends to sign the legislation, but it’s a powerful endorsement nevertheless. Christie admitted in 2011 that he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is thus not a sin. Still, he vetoed marriage equality legislation, so his actions as governor do not quite align with his respectable basic understanding of homosexuality.
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