"Got A Minute?" Two Views of Marriage: The undignified McGreeveys and the two dignified National Guard sergeants

We saw two sides of marriage on display this week in New Jersey -- the undignified divorce trial of former Governor Jim McGreevey and the beautiful and dignified marriage ceremony of two New Jersey National Guard sergeants, Victor Hernandez and Carmen Villegas, who are both going to Iraq. 

I have chronicled the story of Hernandez and Villegas as part of a special project on the state's historic deployment of the National Guard in several stories already in the Record.  Villegas, by the way, is going to Iraq with her son -- what is believed to be the first time in U.S. history that a mother is going into a combat zone with the same unit as her son.  Before Villegas leaves for Iraq, she wanted to get married to Hernandez.  It was a wonderful ceremony -- low-key and deeply moving. For my one-minute commentary on this, please click here to listen:  Download two_views_of_marriage_051608.mp3

See video of the NJ National Guardsmen wedding, by Thomas E. Franklin /NorthJersey.com

Comments

[Pedro]

And let's not forget that many of the soldiers overseas from New Jersey as well as most of the country are denied the right to marry based on their sexual orientation.

Let's rise about tabloid news and focus on issues that are important to the citizens of New Jersey. Yes, I'm just as amused about McGreevey, Elliot Spitzer and Larry Craig but at the end of the day I know that its all entertainment and any attempt to turn their stories into a real issue is driven by a political ideology behind it.