This week in New Jersey politics proves that not all tragedies are created equal. Jim Whelan’s tragic death is heartbreaking. Bob Menendez’ tragic demise is downright disgusting. Both played out this week.

The Best Among Us

With his untimely passing, you’ll hear many tributes to NJ Senator Jim Whelan this week and rightfully so.

Here’s mine:

Back in 2010, then-Senate President Dick Codey put marriage equality up for a vote in Trenton.  The goal: to make New Jersey the 6th state in the nation to let gay people get married.

It was not to be. We lost rather decisively that cold January day, the final tally: 20-14 with 6 abstentions. Senator Whelan voted YES in a losing effort.

“He was a strong and consistent voice for LGBTQ equality,” Babs Siperstein told InsiderNJ. She, the Grande Dame of NJ’s LGBT community. “Besides his 2010 standout vote for marriage equality, I will not forget his passionate and powerful words at a Senate hearing in support of transgender rights legislation”

Luanne Peterpaul echoed that sentiment. She chairs Garden State Equality’s political action fund.

“Jim Whelan was on the right side of history,” Ms Peterpaul told InsiderNJ. “He stood tall with NJ’s LGBT community and we will never forget it.”

It’s hard to overstate how quickly LGBT rights advanced this last decade.  Not long ago, gay marriage and transgender rights wasn’t easy to embrace, even for Democrats. And especially democrats in a bona fide split district Like Jim Whelan. But Senator Jim Whelan voted YES anyway. In doing so, he was the only YAY south of I-195.

Allow me to refresh your memory: when marriage equality first came to a vote in Trenton in 2010, South Jersey went totally AWOL. Senators Jeff Van Drew (Legislative District 1) and Fred Madden (LD4) voted NO. Senators Steve Sweeney (LD3) and Jim Beach (LD6) both abstained. Meanwhile, pro-LGBT GOP Sen. Diane Allen, (LD7) was hospital-bound receiving cancer treatment. Hers was a surefire YES vote. Donald Norcross would have voted YES too, but he hadn’t yet been elevated to the Senate, thereby leaving that seat (vacated by Dana Redd) empty.

Sen. Allen’s absence on account of cancer treatment really made the other abstentions looks pretty craven. It was very hurtful as I recall the scene now, especially for gay people from South Jersey who stood and watched the entire region cave on gay rights. In all, four South Jersey legislators didn’t vote at all.

Guess who didn’t cave? Trenton’s consummate everyman, Senator Jim Whelan.

“Mister Smith goes to Trenton,’ LGBT stalwart Steven Goldstein told Insider NJ, alluding to Senator Whelan’s extraordinary ordinariness.

Goldstein: “Jim told me we’d lose that vote for marriage equality in 2010, which seems like decades ago now, but I’ll never forget when he said ‘For me this is a matter of principle. Jim looked at me during the roll call, I was sitting right behind him in the Senate chamber, and said ‘Steven this is a matter of conscience for me and I want to live to tell my family that I did the right thing.'”

By voting for marriage equality before it was cool and long before it was easy, Jim Whelan showed a combination of decency and political courage that’s nonexistent very rare indeed. Jim Whelan was different and that made him special.

He’s already very sorely missed.

The Worst Among Us

It’s a bizarre segue from someone unimpeachable like Jim Whelan, to Senator Bob Menendez, whose umpteenth corruption trial begins this week. Jurors are being screened as I type away. Their verdict will be especially consequential and not just for Senator Menendez whose career and very freedom are on the line.

He has pleaded not guilty.

If forced out, Menendez leaves a vacuum that’ll be filled by whoever Chris Christie chooses. When you consider the GOP was only one vote away from stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, you realize the Democrats can’t afford to concede a single inch. And surely not a Senate seat.

So what happens to millions of Americans whose healthcare is on the line if Menendez is convicted? Maybe Senator Menendez should have thought of that before allegedly taking all those freebies from (and doing all those favors for) a shady doctor called Solomon Melgen who, not coincidentally, is also facing a raft of federal charges.

Let this be a lesson to any politician who hasn’t died yet: WHEN YOU PASS, WE’LL WRITE ABOUT YOU TOO ! We’ll recall the votes you cast. All of them. And mostly we’ll share anecdotes about how you made us feel.

If you want to be remembered like Jim Whelan, just be more like him! Then we’ll venerate and celebrate as we mourn you too! That’s how this works when good ones go.

It sure beats the alternative.

Just ask Bob Menendez.

Jay Lassiter is an iconoclast, tech savvy media artiste, street warrior for LGBT liberty and marijuana reform, and an un-intimidated presence if the halls of Trenton power as he aggressively pursues liberal causes. He’s often at brunch and always on twitter @Jay_Lass.