And my job - our job - is to keep this momentum rolling to the inevitable.” Monte Stewart of the Utah-based Marriage Law Foundation, which opposes gay marriage, said New Jersey represented “the very best chance that genderless marriage advocates had to pull another Massachusetts.” Advocates launched challenges in the states where they had the best chance of success, he said.He predicted, “Things are changing so rapidly, it’s going to become a political liability in the near term for someone to say, ‘I oppose gay marriage.'” High courts in Washington state and New York in July upheld state laws limiting marriage to one man and one woman. Twenty-six states have sought to preempt rulings by explicitly banning the practice in their constitutions. Legal challenges by gay couples seeking to marry are pending in Maryland, Connecticut and California. The law will create a 13-member Civil Union Review Commission, which will study how well the unions work, evaluate similar statutes in other states, and recommend changes to improve the law. The civil unions bill passed the state Assembly by a vote of 59 to 19 and the state Senate by a vote of 23 to 12. “What I think is remarkable is that civil unions is now widely seen by almost everyone as a fallback position, not a huge leap forward,” he said. Six years ago, when Vermont legislators passed a similar bill, it was only after a debate “that took months and nearly tore the state apart,” he said. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, said he was encouraged by New Jersey’s embrace of civil unions. “It would be wrong to delay providing the needed rights of marriage that will come with enactment of this legislation because of a dispute over words.” “I have no doubt personally that we eventually will have gay marriages in New Jersey without any word symbols to diminish the beauty of two committed people of the same sex who love each other,” she said. Loretta Weinberg, who sponsored the civil union bill, in an editorial last week in the Record in Bergen County. “We need to take a deep breath and a hard look at political reality at this point in time in New Jersey,” wrote Democratic state Sen. Fifty-eight percent of voters opposed that idea 37% supported it.
There was little backing for a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Asked whether gays should be able to marry, 50% said no, while 44% said yes. In the days after the New Jersey Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling, one thing became clear: Voters were at ease with the notion of civil unions.Ī Quinnipiac University poll taken in early December found that 60% of respondents supported civil unions, and 35% opposed them. “Mark my words, New Jersey will see the marriage equality law passed by this Legislature within the next year or two,” he said. A marriage equality law would expand the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, said he was “jubilant for the future,” because so many elected officials had committed to press for marriage rights later. By guaranteeing same-sex couples rights equivalent to marriage, lawmakers “have told the world that marriage no longer matters,” said Robert Knight of the Media Research Center, who opposes gay marriage. Others saw Thursday’s vote as a victory for gay rights. “The irony is that the court referred this matter to the Legislature because it did not want to short-circuit the democratic process,” he said.
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