Chris Christie: Blacks' Voting Rights Should Have Been Decided By Southern White Voters

Maybe Oprah needs to have another sit down with Chris Christie?

Chris Christie has vowed to veto any gay marriage bill that passes his desk—causing him political headaches since it looks like he may have to put that vow to the test. Also giving the roly-poly governor of New Jersey headaches? A comment he made earlier this week suggesting white Southerners should have been allowed to vote civil rights gains for blacks during the 1960s. Let's just say some people respectfully disagree with the presumed 2016 GOP presidential candidate.

See, as part of his push to have New Jersey voters vote on gay marriage in a referendum (so that he doesn't have to be on the record vetoing or not vetoing gay marriage) Christie said: "The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South." But would they have?

Newark mayor Cory Booker, to name just one of a chorus of Christie critics, certainly didn't agree with the sentiment. "I shudder to think what would have happened if the civil rights gains, heroically established by courageous lawmakers in the 1960s, were instead conveniently left up to popular votes in our 50 states," he said.

But Christie isn't backing down, even if he is changing his wording. At another presser he told reporters, "My point is, they’re trying to say the only way to deal with a civil rights issue is through legislation, and my point is that in a state like this, the fact of the matter is their own polling [which shows 52 percent support for gay marriage] belies that position."

And yet the point remains that, as Assemblyman John Wisiewski puts it, "Rosa Parks didn’t get to the front of the bus through a ballot question and Jim Crow laws weren’t repealed by public referendum."