TRENTON, N.J., Dec. 8 (UPI) -- A same-sex marriage bill before the New Jersey Legislature has cleared a key hurdle but is far from passage, lawmakers said.
The state Senate Judiciary Committee voted 7-6 Monday night to send the bill to the full Senate for a vote Thursday. The panel was the first legislative body in New Jersey ever to support a gay marriage bill.
"The marriage-equality movement in America starts again right here," Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality told The New York Times in a story published Tuesday.
Supporters of the bill, however, said they did not yet have the 21 votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate and send it on to the Assembly, where passage was considered more likely, the Times reported.
Opponents of the bill said they were confident it would be defeated by the Senate.
"We've got a long way to go," said Seriah Rein of the Council on the American Family. "And the will of the people, who do not support this, will be heard in the end."
