www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/nyregion/26marriagecnd.html
LAURA MANSNERUS Published: October 25, 2006 The State Supreme Court in New Jersey said today that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.
Times Topics: Marriage News about marriages, including same-sex marriage. But the court, in its 4-3 ruling, said that whether that status should be called marriage, or something else, is a matter left to the democratic process. The courts eagerly awaited decision found that an arrangement akin to that in Vermont, which authorizes civil unions between same-sex couples but does not call them marriages, would satisfy the New Jersey constitutions guarantee of equal protection under the law. The court gave the legislature a six-month deadline to enact the necessary legislation to provide for same-sex unions with rights equal to those of married couples. The decision leaves Massachusetts as the only state to authorize same-sex marriages as such. Since the Massachusetts Supreme Court held in 2003 that that full marriage rights were required for all couples under that states constitution, gay-rights advocates have suffered a string of defeats in other states. The Court of Appeals of New York rejected a similar argument in July. Steven Goldstein, the chairman of the gay-rights group Garden State Equality, said the courts decision was disappointing. Those who would view todays ruling as a victory for same sex couples are dead wrong, he said. Half-steps short of marriage like New Jerseys domestic-partnership law and also civil union laws dont work in the real world. Mr Goldstein promised an immediate campaign to change the state law. According to the 90-page description of their ruling published by the court today, the justices acknowledged that times and attitudes have changed. There has been a developing understanding that discrimination against gays and lesbians is no longer acceptable in this state, they wrote. But the justices wrote that their mission in this case was a narrow one. At this point, the Court does not consider whether committed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but only whether those couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples, the court wrote. Cast in that light, 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. The justices went on to say that this case and other federal cases cited by the plaintiffs fall far short of establishing a fundamental right to marriage, which is an institution the court termed deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people of this state." Despite the rich diversity of this state, the tolerance and goodness of its people, and the many recent advances made by gays and lesbians toward achieving social acceptance and equality under the law, the Court cannot find that the right to same-sex marriage is a fundamental right under our constitution, the court wrote. But the court also said that denying same sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, who is retiring from the New Jersey high court today, said the majority didnt go far enough, and that gay couples have the "fundamental right to participate in a state-sanctioned civil marriage," according to Bloomberg News. She and two other justices concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion written by Justice Barry Albin. Courts in many other states have rejected similar lawsuits by same-sex couples, ruling, as the Court of Appeals of New York did in July, that only the legislature can define marriage or redefine it to include same-sex unions.
To the contrary, nineteen states have adopted constitutional amendments explicitly banning same-sex marriage. Most others have statutory bans, but New Jersey and four other states have neither.
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