The New Jersey Senate Government Committee voted 3-2 Thursday to advance a bill that would prohibit publicly funded travel to states that enforce anti-LGBT laws.
Senators Jim Whelan, Shirley K. Turner and Joseph F. Vitale voted in favor of the bill, known as S2043, while Samuel D. Thompson and Steven V. Oroho voted against it. The yes votes came from the Democrats while the no votes came from the Republicans.
The bill now moves to the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. The New Jersey Assembly passed the bill 54-17 last month. Eight representatives did not vote and one abstained.
Aaron Potenza, director of programs for Garden State Equality, testified in front of the chamber May 5, saying, “Transgender people are not sexual predators, we are not pedophiles. And as every expert medical and psychiatric body has stated, we are not mentally ill. We are individuals from all walks of life, who have at least two things in common: we don’t identify with the sex we were assigned at birth, and we need to go to the bathroom.”
The proposed bill says New Jersey cannot pay for travel to any state that “has adopted a law to protect religious freedom without instituting in such law or other statute protections against discrimination in the provision of goods or services to the public.”
It also says that New Jersey can pay for travel to any municipality that has enacted a nondiscrimination ordinance, even in a state with a religious freedom law that lacks a nondiscrimination clause.