NJ Commission Finds That Civil Unions Poor Alternative to Gay Marriage
A commission has concluded that New Jersey legislators should allow gay couples to marry, setting up what could be a spirited debate over whether the state should be the first to allow gay marriage by passing a law, rather than by court mandate. In its final report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, the state’s Civil Union Review Commission concluded that the state’s two-year-old civil union law doesn’t do enough to give gay couples the same protections as heterosexual married couples. “This commission finds that the separate categorization established by the Civil Union Act invites and encourages unequal treatment of same-sex couples and their children,” the report says. The findings of the commission’s 13 members were unanimous. [AP]
Um. Wow. I could have told them that, and for free too. Way to go NJ Commission?
Find the full report at http://www.nj.gov/oag/dcr/curc.html.
This information has been out for a while. One of the things that annoyed me about No on 8 is that they did not use any of the data already out there about the unequal status of civil unions. There is also data from other civil union states like Vermont. Most people think these things are symbolic, but in actually they are very much substantive differences.
As a former resident of New Jersey and a former member of GAANJ before retiring to Florida, I have a vested interest in seeing same-sex marriage becoming a reality in that state.
Waits with baited breath…..