My Secret Garden -- State.

New Jersey, you know how I know you’re gay?

There’s Jim McGreevey, James Dale and Walt Whitman. But more than that, there’s a legacy, actually. You have a papertrail of pro-homo support that makes you the perfect battleground for the current gay marriage civil rights case.

Against a Trenton backdrop, the left-leaning New Jersey Supreme Court is currently hearing testimony from advocates for gay marriage as well as the state of New Jersey that wants to send the matter to the legislature. Interestingly, the argument isn’t whether gay New Jersey will become the second state in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Instead, at least at this point, the question is whether an activist Supreme Court should be the mechanism legalizing the gay marriage. Advocates for the practice fear it could be rerouted through the cumbersome – and less likely to watch Will & Grace -- state legislature.

New Jersey is among the more progressive states when it comes to gay civil rights. State workers, for example, get same-sex partner benefits. And, unlike other states, New Jeresey has a civil union law that gives gay partners exactly the same legal rights as a married couple. These are but a few of the litany of reasons New Jersey serves as the perfect setting for the gayest storm in years.

New Jersey’s warm same-sex embrace has a time-tested and well-entrenched history. One good place to start is with Camden’s own Walt Whitman. The caber-rattling war monger also liked to frolic in the Garden State’s bucolic fields with the finest specimen of fieldhand. He was the star in his own Brokeback Pine Barrens. Check out my favorite Whitman poem, “O, Tan-Face Prarie Boy:”
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food—till at last, among the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but look’d on each other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.

Not enough yet? Move on to Newark-born Allen Ginsberg, the beat-generation guru whose homosexuality played a crucial role in shaping America’s fascination with and aversion to gays. Check out Howl if you don’t believe me:
who howled on their knees in the subway and were
dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fuded in the ass by saintly
motorcyclists, and screamed with joy, who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailor, caresses of
Altantic and Caribbean love,of Atlantic

But poets aren’t your only gay export. New Jersey has a Supreme history of gayness. Recall, for example, James Dale, the Boy Scout who outted [SP?] himself in a Star-Ledger newspaper story about gay advocacy. When the Scouts caught wind of the Dale’s homo vibe, they tried to eliminate the Eagle Scout from their membership roster. Enter New Jersey’s Supreme Court, which slapped the Scoutmaster’s wrists and resumed Dale’s slot in the scouting ranks.

In politics, we have the iconic McGreevey – the first gay governor. Well, maybe he’s not the first, but he was definitely the first to out himself in a press conference to thrwart an effort at blackmail. Now that’s gay.

And in the arts: Drag’s best friend Flip Wilson was born in Jersey City, N.J. Queen Latifah hasn’t come out yet, but really Queeney … like we don’t know already. And how gay was Bon Jovi in the 80s? Even I didn’t wear that much spandex – and I was like eight.

So New Jersey, don’t hide your rainbow flag. March in the pride parade. Be who you truly are. And don’t be afraid to invite anger and controversy. Blaze your well-groomed, pedicured trail. Allow your cities, towns and schools to be the carnation pink battleground it was meant to be. Don’t deny your nature. It just wouldn’t be in proper character. It wouldn’t be the first time you took a step in the gay direction. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.