Gay Couples' Rights in New Jersey: Homosexual Union Ruling Passed

Wednesday October 25, 2006 has become the next landmark in the fight for gay rights. New Jersey’s highest court ruled that homosexual couples must be granted the same rights under the law that heterosexual couples receive. The New Jersey Supreme Court stopped short of demanding that the state allow homosexual couples to be allowed to marry; they granted legislators 180 days to determine how to provide for these rights.

The ruling in New Jersey could place gay couples in the same position as Vermont’s 1999 decision that led to civil unions, it could lead to any other arrangement the legislators can imagine to offer the same rights as marriage, or it could open the door to homosexual marriages like Massachusetts has. This certainly seems to be a long shot in the country’s current political climate, but some of New Jersey’s Democratic lawmakers have already said that they will be pushing for a change to the current marriage statutes defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

The reaction from conservatives to the decision was split. Some expressed excitement, not at the ruling itself, but at its political implications. They are taking a view akin to “losing the battle but winning the war”, saying that the New Jersey ruling would be fuel for their cause. The publicity generated by the imminent legal acceptance of homosexual unions or marriages in New Jersey might encourage more people to vote for Republicans in the upcoming election, they feel, and could possibly push things in their favor in close races.