Barbara Buono's Lesbian Daughter Is In A Very Different Situation Than Louie Gohmert's Lesbian Daughter

Digby, Jacquie and Amato met with Barbara Buono at Netroots Nation last week-- so now we can all vouch for what an incredible governor she would make. All she has to do is get around a gigantic roadblock, media darling (they're masochists) Chris Christie. But, as far as Blue America is concerned, it's now official: we endorse Barbara Buono for governor of the Garden State!

Early Monday morning I found an e-mail from someone named Tessa Bitterman. I never heard of her and almost deleted it. But something made me open it and read it. I'm glad I did. Tessa is Barbara Buono's youngest daughter, a law student. Perhaps you read the tragedy of Republican Congressman and sociopathic homophobe Louie Gohmert (R-TX), whose daughter, an artist and a lesbian, moved to Shanghai to get as far away from her hate-filled father as she could. Very sad, especially as Gohmert runs around spreading lies and divisiveness about the LGBT community. Buono's daughter is also a lesbian and, of course, her relationship with her mother is nothing like the acrimonious and combative one in the Gohmert household. This is the e-mail from Tessa-- not about Gohmert, but about another Republican hatemonger and homophobe, Chris Christie:

Growing up, my mom was always there for me no matter what. I’m gay and from an early age I felt free to express myself with my mother, knowing she would always support me for who I am.

As a gay American I have a stake in what our governor says about marriage equality. And I have been deeply shocked by Chris Christie. As governor, he has been a giant roadblock to New Jersey achieving equality for all. By failing to support marriage equality, Christie is blatantly delegitimizing an entire group of people.

I have also seen Chris Christie misrepresent himself as a moderate to New Jersey-- that’s why it’s even more important to stop him before he takes his radical show on the road when he goes national after this election.

...Now that Christie is running for re-election, he is more than happy to try and portray himself as a moderate. But the truth is-- his record scares me. It scares me because if he takes his brand of deception national, all Americans are in for a rude awakening.

Tessa urges her readers to contribute to her mom's campaign-- which you can do here-- and reminds New Jersey voters that "if we want to keep politics of polarizing and dividing people from spreading beyond New Jersey" we need to help Buono overcome the media's narrative that Christie "has the election in the bag." This photo shows the inside of Christie headquarters the other day, when interns were fed donuts. Read the label carefully:

UPDATE from Tessa

"Did you see what the Supreme Court just did? They just ruled that I and millions of other Americans have the right to have the federal government recognize our marriages.

"But here in New Jersey, Chris Christie is still blocking marriage equality-- he is trying to be more conservative than Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and the rest of the Tea Party."

And speaking of New Jersey's homophobic and bigoted governor, Christie disagrees with the Supreme Court rulings:

“I don’t think the ruling was appropriate,” said Christie, who is running for re-election in a blue state, one in which Democrats have hailed the SCOTUS decision on DOMA.

“I think it was wrong,” Christie continued, calling it “typical of the problem we see” in New Jersey’s own Supreme Court…

He blasted the U.S. Supremes for substituting “their own judgment for the judgment of a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. In the Republican Congress in the ‘90s and Bill Clinton. I thought that Justice Kennedy’s opinion was, in many respects, incredibly insulting to those people, 340-some members of Congress who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bill Clinton.”

“He basically said that the only reason to pass that bill was to demean people. That’s heck of a thing to say about Bill Clinton and about the Republican Congress back in the ‘90s. And it’s just another example of judicial supremacy, rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for,” said Christie, who recently appeared with Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference.

Bill Clinton, of course, has completely disowned DOMA and has campaigned against it. The Republicans may too... in a couple decades. More reason than ever to support Barbara Buono for governor of New Jersey.