TRENTON, NJ, August 14, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Current New Jersey law allows men who have undergone castration surgery and women who have undergone male genital construction surgery to change the gender on their birth certificates. But the freedom to officially finalize transgender fiction is apparently not enough for New Jersey gay activists pushing the “Birth Certificate Modernization Bill.”
The Birth Certificate Modernization Bill would allow men who want to be women and women who want to be men to change their identities on government documents even without reconstruction surgery, as long as such a person's doctor verifies that he or she is undergoing chemical treatments to look more like the opposite sex.
The New Jersey legislature overwhelmingly passed the bill for the second time in June, with bipartisan approval.
Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the bill on Monday, saying that birth certificates are the basis for passports, driver's licenses, social services, and a host of other vital records, and that approval to change government identification should be only “sparingly approved.”
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Christie concluded that the bill has “the potential to create legal uncertainties” and that it raised “legitimate and significant concerns” over security.
“Birth certificates unlock access to many of our … critical and protected benefits such as passports, driver's licenses, and social services, as well as other important security-dependent allowances,” Christie said in a statement. “Accordingly … efforts to significantly alter State law concerning the issuance of vital records that have the potential to create legal uncertainties should be closely scrutinized and sparingly approved.”
Homosexual activists condemned Christie's veto. The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCFTE) released a statement saying the current law is “outdated” and imposes “burdensome requirements that make it incredibly difficult for transgender people to get birth certificates that match who they are.”
NCFTE reiterated that “birth certificates play an enormous role in transgender people's ability to live their life as the person that they are.”
“Governor Christie's veto makes life more difficult for transgender people in New Jersey,” said Mason Davis, the executive director of the Transgender Law Center.
Eight states plus the District of Columbia have legislation similar to New Jersey's now vetoed Birth Certificate Modernization Bill.
