After months of nail-biting suspense, the New Jersey Supreme Court had finally reached a decision on whether or not to allow gay-marriage.
New Jersery Supreme Court has affirmed gay marriage rights 4:3, but have left the semantics of it all up to the legislator. It’s likely the NJ will pull a VT and deem gay marriages “civil union” as it decides the exact parameters. They’ve got six months to reach a decision, so unfortunately there’s still more waiting.
First brought up in 2002, Lewis v. Harris, involved seven couples who have been together for 14 to 32 years and believe that the state should honor their commitment to one another. Since then, the case went through the judicial chain of command all the way up to the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in February of this year.
Now, after all that time, gays in NJ have finally received the good news they’ve been waiting for; still, non-NJ residents won’t be able “marry” there…
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Rev Joseph A. Ianiro Jr. DD
How is it that gay couples have the same right as straight couples but the NJ Legislator now has to decide that?????
If they have the same rights, then they have the same rights. Period
Mike
For once, this means New Jersey will be the butt of jokes that actually make me proud.
A key point: The 4-3 decision was more in favour of gay marriage than you would initially believe. The 3 dissenters argued that couples should be given full marriage rights instead of kicking the issue back to legislators. That means, all 7 justices were voting in favour of gay marriage, and the only disagreement was whether the legislature should have input.
Michael
I am also from NJ and read the opinion. Mike said it best. The irony here was that the Republican Chief Justice on her last day was the leader of the dissent that wanted to have same sex marriage only (not civil unions) and the Democrat appointment from McSleazy Jim McGreevy lead the vote to put it to the Legislature. Surprise, surprise the Republicans said they will fight it there and the Democrat control Legislature already has a bill introduced to say its same sex marriage and not civil unions. But the Governor, who opposes same sex marriage, said he would uphold the Court’s decision.
If some of the Democrats side with the Republicans, the best we will get are civil unions..but as Mike said the good news is that the Court said that whatever you call it that it has to be equal to heterosexual marriage and must have the same rights and benefits as heterosexual marriage. Let’s hope they do the right thing and the Governor signs the law too and allow same sex marriage. Period.
Queer Beacon
I think Ronald Dworkin (the great American legal philosopher cited in the minority dissent) nailed it in the head: “Civil union status may provide many of the legal and material benefits of marriage, but it does not provide the social and personal meaning of that institution.”
We deserve full equality under the law.
Michael
Queen Beacon, I totally agree with you. Sadly, the NY Times reported today that the Democratic Legislature (and its leadership in my opinion is homophobic) says they will not vote for same sex marriage but only for civil unions. That is outrageous considering they claim to be the political party that is for equality. Bull!! The Governor, a Democrat, will only support civil unions. Also, equally outrageous, particularly since the Gay community has strongly backed the Democrats in the last number of elecions. Of course, the Republicans, according to the article, oppose both civil unions and same sex marriage.
I hope that there is enough pressure to pass same sex marriage and not civil unions.