New Jersey Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Same-Sex Unions
A huge victory for equal rights today from New Jersey where the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as straight couples are:
Denying committed 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. ….committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statute.
This Novembers constitutional ammendment question that would outlaw same-sex unions is going to be a huge moment for the people Wisconsin. Either we will choose to align ourselves with the bigoted and backwards laws of generally Southern states, or we will support to choose a progressive agenda that says all people are equal.
A little good news in an otherwise bleak month.
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I haven’t followed this in New Jersey and only quickly scanned the article, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high. The language “substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose” says that the NJ court used intermediate scrutiny in deciding whether homosexuals are entitled to equal protection. Intermediate scrutiny makes the state provide a very good reason for discriminating, but as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, it is confined to laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. Homosexuality is relegated to “rational basis scrutiny,” which says that a law discriminating against a group of people must only be rationally related to an important governmental objective.
Legislation discriminating against gays has been upheld in the past, as the Supreme Court decided that homosexuals do not deserve the same protection as racial groups or women. In other words, it’s pretty easy for a state to argue something like “tradition” as a rational reason for not allowing homosexuals full rights.
Furthermore, just last year the Court flatly refused to apply equal protection jurisprudence in the case Lawrence v. Texas. In that case the Court struck down an anti-sodomy law, but did so on “right to privacy” grounds, refusing to use equal protection, which would have required moving homosexuals up from the “rational basis” level.
So, see what happens. New Jersey might or might not get gay marriage. But there’s virtually no chance this decision will be affirmed by the Supreme Court and applied nationally.