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New Jersey Supreme Court Orders State to Give Homosexuals All Benefits of “Marriage” Except the Name “Marriage”

Leaves Decision of What to call such Unions up to Legislature

By Hilary White

TRENTON, October 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled today that homosexuals in “committed” relationships must be granted the same benefits of married couples, but declined to name the relationship “marriage.”

Justice Albin, writing on behalf of the New Jersey, opined that denying “committed same-sex couples” the full “financial and social benefits and privileges” of marriage “bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose.”

The Court ruled “that under the equal protection guarantee of…the New Jersey Constitution, 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 decision overturned two lower court decisions in favour of a group of homosexuals who had campaigned to put an end to statutory marriage in New Jersey through the courts. Members of the group had pursued a lawsuit after they were refused marriage licenses alleging that this violated the New Jersey state constitution.

The ruling equated the preservation of marriage with “discrimination” in language that mirrored perfectly the homosexual propaganda. “Times and attitudes have changed. There has been a developing understanding that discrimination against gays and lesbians is no longer acceptable in this State.”

The Court allowed the democratic legislature the privilege of deciding what to call the “statutory scheme,” whether “marriage” or something else.

Concerned Women for America, the organization that had campaigned to preserve marriage in New Jersey, said the case was a “textbook” example of an activist group using the “agenda-driven” judges and courts to overturn and subvert the legislative process.

CWA’s Chief Counsel Jan LaRue said that the court ignored 28 statute sections that include references to the term 'married woman' and 'married man' and the term 'husband and wife.'

LaRue warned that because New Jersey has no residency requirement for marriage the state was carefully chosen as a test case. “If the legislature caves in to the court, it could open the door for lawsuits challenging every state’s marriage law.”

Wendy Wright, CWA’s President pointed to the court’s lack of concern for children, saying, “The thirty-year experiment of treating marriage as expendable, by making divorce easy and children fatherless, has proven to be a disaster for women, children and society.”

“This should provide enough evidence for courts and legislators to quit abusing marriage by pretending it is less important or demanding than it is.

Many defenders of marriage have pointed out that the interests of homosexuals in pursuing their political agenda has left children the forgotten baggage of the war. “We should not be forced, or children subjected to, another social experiment with marriage simply to make individuals personally satisfied,” Wendy Wright said.

Read the New Jersey Supreme Court Ruling (Adobe required):
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/supreme/a-68-05.pdf

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
"Same Sex Marriage Harms Children's Rights" Marriage Symposium Hears
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06092110.html

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