| NJ recognizes civil unions and it honors marriages of same-sex couples from other jurisdictions, but it has not enacted marriage equality. As Lamda Legal says, even with civil unions "individuals in same-sex relationships frequently are treated like strangers under the law which most deeply affect those with children, those with fewer financial resources, people of color, senior citizens or those with less access to education, branding lesbians and gay men as second class." |
| Today Assignment Judge Linda Feinberg, Mercer County Superior Court, will hear a motion from the State to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Garden State Equality and seven same-sex couples, seeking marriage equality. It appears unlikely the State will succeed in dismissing the case and no witnesses are anticipated to appear. The hearing is at Civil Courthouse at 175 South Broad Street in Trenton.
In a Lamda Legal/Garden State Equality 2002 case the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that same-sex couples must be provided all the benefits and responsibilities of marriage, although it declined to mandate that marriage was specifically required. The legislature hastily passed a civil union law in December 2006, and began issuing civil union licenses to lesbian and gay couples in February 2007.
In late 2009/early 2010, the State Senate Judiciary Committee supported a Marriage Equality bill, but the Senate voted it down 20-14 after an hour and a half of public debate with a thousand supporters and opponents on the Statehouse steps. (See Senate roll call S1967 here.) Later numerous Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who had opposed the bill, in their speeches and press releases admitted that the civil union law was not working. Co-Sponsor Senator Weinberg said, "Everyone should know that the New Jersey effort is one of a series of steps. We will look back with pride on what we did; others will look back in great unanswerable regret." The Assembly never took up the bill.
On June 29, 2011, just a few days after New York voted in favor of marriage equality, Hayley J. Gorenberg (Lamda Legal) and Lawrence S. Lustberg (Gibbons P.C.), representing Garden State Equality and seven same-sex couples and their children, filed a lawsuit in Mercer County Superior Court. This suit for which the State seeks dismissal today argues that the civil union law violates both the NJ Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution. Garden State Equality movingly documents why civil unions don't work in a series of videos here. Senator Lesniak has said,"It is not often we have an opportunity to treat each other as human beings. We can change fear to love, hate to compassion, and cruelty to kindness." |
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