The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that state lawmakers must provide the rights and benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.
The high court on Wednesday gave legislators six months to either change state marriage laws to include same-sex couples, or come up with another mechanism, such as civil unions, that would provide the same protections and benefits.
The court’s vote was 4-to-3. But the ruling was more strongly in favor of same-sex marriage than that split would indicate. The three dissenting justices argued the court should have extended full marriage rights to homosexuals, without kicking the issue back to legislators.
The decision mirrors the one made in 1999 by Vermont’s highest court, which prompted its legislature to create civil unions for same-sex couples, with the same rights and benefits enjoyed by heterosexuals.
The New Jersey high court held that state laws prohibiting gay and lesbian couples from receiving the “financial and social benefits and privileges” of marriage violate the equal protection clause of the New Jersey Constitution and served no “legitimate governmental purpose.”
The biggest problem this decision faces is that the issue is now handed back to politicians for possible resolution. Anyone else old enough to remember when you could expect leadership — instead of opportunism and reaction — from politicians on a controversial issue?
Doesn’t it feel VERY suspicious that every time an election is near stuff about immigrants and homosexuality floats on the news?
I bet the Republicans are letting these little laws go ahead in hopes to get the Redneck vote and the Christian vote and then overturn these laws.
Of course, the Democrats are even bigger suckers for letting themselves being dragged into this BS.
Is anyone else dissappointed with the fact that we have a bi-partisan system?
Why is it always about Rep’s vs Dem’s? as though every issue was black or white, and every person agreed wholeheartedly with one party on every issue… what a fake.
A bi-partisan system cannot appropriately represent a population.
This decision isn’t making law. It simply ruled in a case, brought by people who felt they were being discriminated against by the state Constitution. The Court ruled that they were, and ordered the legislature to correct the problem with/in 6 months. They didn’t say how, but said the new laws must make all equal under the Constitution. Thats it. They made no law.
As to people and the ability to amend law by proposition…..it’s good and bad. But when the legislature will not do it’s elected duty, then people should have a direct voice in what gets done or not done. My problem with this is the huge sums that some parties can bring to bear for getting people to vote their way.
Arnold has been pretty much a success, much to my surprise. He made some mistakes, but all in all, he’s been a good Governor. He has lowered the deficit from 36 billion to 4.5 billion, got a better deal with the Indian casino’s for revenue sharing, there’s been no more rolling power outages, and energy has stablized for the first time in 10 years and he has been able to work with a heavely Democratic controlled legislature, something Grey Davis couldn’t do. He’s even found more money for schools and local goverments and has brought in some decent enviromental laws…..not to bad for an actor and Republican.
This is the beginning of the end of homosexuality. The only reason homosexuality persisted for thousands of years was because it was against society to be homosexual so almost all homosexual men married AND HAD CHILDREN to satisfy the pressure of society. Meanwhile, back at the ranch they were riding their hidden pleasures mano a mano. But now with society accepting gays, there is no pressure on them to have legitimate children which they can pass on their GAY GENE. If the gay gene is not passed on there will no longer be gays in the gene pool. I’d say in one hundred years the future will see a steep decline in gays in America. There will still be many however from other countries where society is nearly as open.
There may or may not be a genetic basis for homosexuality, but even if there is, I’ve not heard any evidence that it is a simple inherited trait that is passed down from parent to child.
Then there are also the famous gay penguins and other homosexual animals and it doesn’t seem likely that culture is forcing gay penguins to mate with the opposite sex.
#34 I have this impulse to think there was sarcasm in your statement, and it almost amused me … but just in case … identical twin studies shed some darkness on the gene theory … its not likely to be the case, thus more recently science is looking for new ways to say “they are born that way” … such as maternal horomones, and such.
anyway, it would be quite an irony if just two generations after homosexuality acheived ‘acceptable’ status it simply faded away… but that kind of reminds me of the arguements for legalizing drugs… (only kind of)
I think it’s about time that the checks and balances started working as our Founding Fathers had intended.
B.
>The legislature has 2 options, comply with their state constitution, or >change it.
They’re already in compliance with the state constitution. They could simply ignore the ruling.
Is anyone else dissappointed with the fact that we have a bi-partisan system?
Yes, since the U. S. Constitution make specific provisions for more than two candidates (Article 2, Section 1, paragraph 3)
“The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President.”
[emphasis added]
This section, if you check it here HAS been altered by a later amendment, which the link also has a hyperlink to.
J/P=?
#19
The judiciary role is to interpret the law as it applies to actual cases and to ensure that those laws abide by the fundamental rights set down in the Constitution (or given States’ Constitution). They are not elected by the people and therefore do not represent the voice or will of the people. It is not their place to simply tell the legislature that they will not accept any law that is not to their liking.
It would be equivalent to the Police department stating that they are not going to enforce certain laws. If either the Courts or the Police do not like a law, then they should encourage the people to have their representatives change it. However, in the mean time, they are obligated to abide by the law as written by the legislature.
If a State wants gay marriage, then have the legislature codify that privlege in a law.
#26
There was nothing in any of the State Constitutions that said anything about the privleges of marriage or any sort of equity required for those privleges. The Courts simply pulled the “you must make gay marriage and straight marriage equal” out of thin air. There was no Constituional basis whatsoever to make such a judgement. We are not talking about fundamental rights here. We are talking about certain special privleges granted to certain members of soceity. There is nothing that stops a gay couple from getting married. However, the State is no obligated to bestow upon that couple the same privleges as those of gay marriages.
Personally, I believe that they should treat all marriages, including gay marriage, the same, because the concept of marriage is already somewhat arbitrary. But the right way to get change effected is to change the law via your elected representative.
Just wanted to compliment our participants, this morning.
Whenever I post about a controversial topic, I wonder how many comments I’m going to have to edit for violating our comment guidelines. Even the [very few] wingnuts acted fairly responsible.
Maybe I’m being too sensitive; but, the newspaper that carries my blog — just pulled automatic commenting, limited the number of articles allowed to comment on, and now requires editorial checking of every comment beforehand — because of offensive remarks.
I’m glad we don’t face that — here.
41. Hate to be the one to break your bubble, but censoring happens on D. Uncensored as well. It’s very rare, however.
RBG
35. “Then there are also the famous gay penguins and other homosexual animals and it doesn’t seem likely that culture is forcing gay penguins to mate with the opposite sex.”
“That all ended when Scrappy, a single female newly arrived from SeaWorld in San Diego, caught Silo’s eye.
“Silo and Roy stopped spending as much time together or building a nest,” said John Rowden, curator of animals at the zoo.
Silo promptly moved in with Scrappy, building a new nest with her. Zookeepers were at a loss to explain Silo’s sudden conversion.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169653,00.html
RBG
36. So science still has no real understanding why there are homosexuals? But they sure are willing to impose all the social implications and influence upon a heterosexual society, including developing children, nevertheless. Reminds me exactly of a time when the social scientists and PCers insisted upon imposing their PC views that both boys and girls be raised equally influenced by both girl toys and boy toys. What a laugh that turned out to be, as every parent raising small kids well knows.
RBG