For the fourth consecutive year, Jersey City was ranked No. 1 nationwide on the Human Rights Campaign's list of gay-friendly communities.
Do openly gay members serve on your community's governing boards? Does the town provide services to members of the LGBTQ community who are elderly? Who are homeless?
Are township officials committed to reporting hate crimes when they occur? When city contracts are awarded, do they go to companies that treat LGBTQ employees fairly?
New Jersey's municipalities might not enjoy the gay-friendly reputation of San Francisco or Massachusetts's Provincetown, say. But a dozen of them scored remarkably high on a list recently released by a national organization ranking friendliness toward the LGBTQ community.
(The acronym refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning.)
Among those singled out by the organization called Human Rights Campaign were Lambertville, Princeton and Trenton. For the fourth consecutive year, Jersey City was ranked No. 1 in the Garden State on the group's list of gay-friendly communities. Jersey City was one of 60 nationwide to receive a perfect 100 score.
The nation's largest advocacy organization for LGBTQ rights conducts an annual Municipal Equality Index of towns throughout the country, assessing such factors as gay pride, the presence of an LGBTQ police liaison or task force, and the availability of services to LGBTQ youths.
Where are the most LGBT-friendly towns in N.J.?
In New Jersey, Lambertville came in a close second with 98 points, with Princeton weighing in at 74 and Trenton at 69. The average score nationwide was 55.
In the best of all possible worlds, of course, every city in every state would make its LGBTQ residents feel safe, welcome and engaged.
In that ideal world, we would not have to dread that a U.S. Supreme Court under the incoming Republican regime could - and likely will - reverse any progress the LGBTQ community has made over the past few years.
Never has the phrase "Elections have consequences" rung truer - or stirred such despair.
Even now, job discrimination and school-yard bullying remain a challenge for many gay and transgender individuals. Although marriage equality became the law of the land last year, many same-sex couples still think long and hard about where they're going to live and raise a family.
A town like Lambertville, with its proliferation of rainbow flags, sends an unmistakable message: Here is a place where you can put down roots without worrying about being discriminated against and shunned.
For Randy Rabney, who lives with her wife in Maplewood, another gay-friendly community, that means living in a community where people "can just be who they are."
We salute the leaders of Jersey City, Lambertville, Princeton and others for working to create this type of world. And for the rest of New Jersey's 500-plus cities who didn't make it on to the list for 2016 - there's always next year.
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