New Jersey court recognizes right to same-sex unions From Rose Arce CNN TRENTON, New Jersey (CNN) -- The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state's constitution gives gay and lesbian couples all the rights of married heterosexual couples. But the court left it to the state legislature to decide what to call the relationship. It gave lawmakers 180 days to either include gay and lesbian couples in the state's existing marriage laws or grant those rights under the title civil unions. (Watch a couple say why they want to call their 32-year relationship marriage -- 2:01Video) The decision mirrors the one made in 1999 by Vermont's highest court, which allowed gay and lesbian couples all the rights of marriage but left it to the legislature to decide how to grant them. (Opinion -- pdfexternal link) The next year the Vermont Legislature chose to call such relationships civil unions, and a firestorm of controversy ensued around the country. In its 4-3 ruling, the New Jersey court said, "The issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people." Lawyers for the seven New Jersey gay and lesbian couples in the case had argued that the New Jersey Constitution's guarantee of liberty and equality allows them to marry. The plaintiffs' lawyers said that for gay and lesbian couples to have true equality the institution must bear the same name. Opponents fear the national impact of the decision because New Jersey currently imposes no residency requirements for people to be married in the state. They worry that gay couples from around the country will come to the state, create unions and go back and challenge their home state laws. "This is a repeat of what happened in Vermont," said Matt Daniels of Alliance for Marriage, which supports a federal constitutional amendment barring marriages between people of the same sex. "They took the future of marriage out of the hands of the people of New Jersey. They are holding a gun to the head of the legislature of New Jersey and saying pick between two bullets -- one that allows civil unions and one that allows marriage." In its decision, the New Jersey court said the state Constitution demands that "committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. "The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process." The court said the state's existing Domestic Partnership Act, similar to one adopted in several other states, including California, doesn't go far enough in protecting the rights of gay couples. "The Domestic Partnership Act has failed to bridge the inequality gap between committed same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples," the court said. "Significantly, the economic and financial inequities that are borne by same-sex domestic partners are also borne by their children. "Further, even though same-sex couples are provided fewer benefits and rights by the act, they are subject to more stringent requirements to enter into a domestic partnership than opposite-sex couples entering a marriage." The issue of gay marriage has roiled American politics for over a decade. The debate intensified in 2004 when Massachusetts became the first and only state to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. The state does not allow nonresidents to marry there, however. Afterward, six other states granted same-sex couples most marriage rights, under the terms civil union or domestic partnership. Massachusetts marriages are not recognized by the federal government or 45 other states that have laws banning same-sex marriages. The issue won't end with the New Jersey decision. On November 7, voters in eight states will decide whether to amend their constitutions to ban gays from marrying. Court challenges in four states seek the right to marry. Among the New Jersey couples that filed the lawsuit are Episcopal pastors Mark Harris and Denis Winslow. They said each of them has performed so many weddings they've lost count, but the wedding they dream of attending is their own. "We see it as a civil right that we're denied," Winslow said. "Even though we pay first-class taxes, we are treated as second-class citizens. We don't have that freedom to exercise our relationship in a practical way, dare I say, spiritual way." http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/25/gay.marriage/index.html
This is the one issue causing me to oppose same-sex marriage. Should taxpayers and workers subsidize death benefits to homos? The reason for the creation of Social Security was to address the problem of poverty during the Depression among widows. Most married women have traditionally "worked" as stay at home Moms. Those rare childless hetero couples do indeed "beat" the system. However even if only some believe same-sex marriage to be a moral perversion, few could dispute that the payment of death benefits to same sex partners is a fiscal perversion. I'm just waiting for how one of these "high" courts rules on the inevitable incest and bigamy challenges to some state's marriage law.
Stay at home gay moms should have just as much right as stay at home hetero moms.... And same goes for stay at home non moms, gay and straight.... Equal protection under the law....
Of course the issue of whether S.S. bennies are even covered by the law is questionable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemming_v._Nestor
More law making from crazed judges. What would they do if the state legislature refused to kneel down and kiss their ass? Maybe they should just dissolve the legislature, and make all the state's laws themselves. At least that would save money. Wonder if this will get the attention of disaffected conservative voters and show them the stakes of putting Democrats in power?
Z are you hetero-phobic? The reason I ask is because you use the politically correct word for homos (gay) and the scientific term for straights (hetero).
Uh....(taking poetic license from Pabst)... Do you have a dick in your mouth right now? Really Clay, a stupid question like yours deserved an equally stupid response...
Ha! I really should not be that way. I went to a bar the other night that had a number of gays in it and in all honesty I felt sorry for alot of them. Some of them seemed comfortable with themselves and made me laugh my ass off. But at least half of them seemed liked scared little depressed children. I would have to see more before I judged too harshly but if the ones that seem comfortable and are so funny and personable are taking advantage of the little weak ones I could easily see my homo-queasiness return and start agreeing more with the anti-gays. Does anyone know if this is patternable? Do the confident ones tend to pray on the little weak ones?
The problem is the term homo is used mostly as a slur...hetero is not. Gay softens it up a bit, but is still a slur in the minds of many straights. I think you will find patterns among nearly any group, with their own dynamics, in a bar setting. While it appears that you have the aggressors and the "aggressorees" it really is a dance between the two, and while it usually appears the aggressors are in control, that is often the illusion of the dance. Just ask a woman who is really in control when the man "thinks" he is.... That's just the nature of seduction, isn't it?