Here's your Nice Time video for the day: Newark Mayor and Senator-Elect Cory Booker officiating at the city's first same-sex weddings, marrying nine couples just after midnight, when New Jersey joined the rest of the 21st century. Did everything go seamlessly? Of course not: some asshat protester decided to Make A Statement, and was crushed beneath Cory Booker's tyrannical heel.
As Booker was marrying the first couple, Joseph Panessidi and Orville Bell, someone attempted to disrupt the ceremony.
Booker had asked if anyone had reason to object to the marriage and a protester screamed “This is unlawful in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ.”
Booker, who was elected to the U.S. Senate last week, called for the person to be removed and police dragged him out.
As Booker continued speaking, “...not hearing any substantive and worthy objections,” thunderous applause erupted.
We are not up on New Jersey law, but we are given to understand that God or Jesus Christ would have had to have objected in person, rather than by proxy.
At another point, the probably-straight (but y'all can dream ) senator-elect said to one couple, Gabriela Celeiro and Liz Salerno, who had gotten all weepy, "There's some law about making a mayor cry ... It's illegal." (This being Cory Booker and not Barack Obama, we were spared angry Breitbart headlines about how Booker made the ceremony all about himself.)
Panessidi and Bell later said that the heckler hadn't marred the ceremony for them:
There "will always be protesters. That's their right," he said. "It does not affect me."
The Newark couple has been together for 15 years and in a civil union since 2009. Bell said he has known for a long time he wanted to marry Panessidi.
"I always know what I want, Joseph happened to fit that bill for me," Bell said. "At the end of the day, we can go to bed and say, 'I love you.'"
The weddings were the first that Booker has performed as mayor; he explained after the ceremonies that "I wasn't going to marry anybody, if I couldn't marry everybody."
As appears to have become the norm for these things, the ground did not open up to swallow anyone involved in today's ceremonies; nor were Booker nor any of the couples struck by lighting bolts hurled by a vengeful God. It is believed that a fair amount of very caloric alcohol and cake was consumed, however, which will take literally hours at the gym to work off.
[ NJ.com ]
That's some sharp eyesight, but unless Booker is 6' 9", probably not.
This is what happens when the most recent update to your law books is 2,000 years old.