Supreme court says state must provide equal rights to gay couples

The state supreme court ruled today that New Jersey should give gay couples the right to marry or create a "parallel statutory structure" that would provide the same rights and obligations as marriage.

This decision would appear to be a setback to those who had hoped that the court would require the state to offer gay couples the right to marry, instead of permitting the state to consider a separate-but-equal, alternative structure.

On campus, the confusing nature of the decision was immediately apparent. Initially, the LGBT Center sent a message to subscribers of its mailing list declaring that "We won!"

A few minutes later, however, another message was sent for clarification: "The choice is being left to the Legislature. What will result is either civil unions or marriage. The Court ruled the status-quo is unacceptable."

Chris Lloyd '06, head of the Princeton Justice Project's Gay Family Rights project, called today's decision "a major victory for New Jersey and Princeton's LGBT community."

"While the court did stop short of full marriage rights, three legislators have already said they will introduce a bill in the legislature for marriage equality, so the community should be very optimistic," he said. "Those who view today's ruling as a defeat are wrong."

The PJP wrote an amicus brief last fall, which the USG signed, on behalf of the seven plaintiffs in the case. In a campus-wide referendum, the undergraduate student body was asked whether the USG should side with the couples. A slim majority of students backed the brief, which was submitted to the court.

"Princeton students had a major impact on the outcome of this case," Lloyd added. "Today's ruling serves as an example of what Princeton students can help accomplish when they are motivated and dedicated."

Several legal scholars and political insiders had expected the court — known to be among the more activist in the country on social issues and individual rights — to find that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in the state, as the Massachusetts supreme court did in 2003.

But today's decision bears resemblance to a similar case in Vermont, where the state supreme court ruled in 2000 that the state must allow gay couples to "obtain the same benefits and protections afforded by Vermont law to married opposite-sex couples."

The Vermont court did not rule on whether the state was required to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, but suggested that the legislature could enact a parallel licensing scheme affording the same substantial benefits as marriage to same-sex couples. That was, in fact, what Vermont did, creating what it termed "civil unions."

"Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution," Justice Barry Albin wrote for the New Jersey court in its 4-to-3 decision.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"With this State's legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee."

The dissenters in the case, which included retiring Chief Justice Deborah Portiz, concurred with the majority in part, but dissented because they argue that the state must offer gay couples the right to marry, instead of providing an equivalent structure.

"I would extend the Court's mandate to require that same-sex couples have access to the 'status' of marriage and all that the status of marriage entails," the chief justice wrote.

The New Jersey case was brought to the court by seven gay and lesbian couples who sued New Jersey officials after being denied marriage licenses, claiming that the officials violated the state constitution's equal protection and privacy clauses. After losing the case in a 2-1 ruling of the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division in 2002, the couples appealed to the state supreme court.

New Jersey currently allows same-sex couples to enter into domestic partnerships, which provides them with some of the legal protections and rights afforded to heterosexual couples.

A Rutgers-Eagleton poll conducted this summer found that New Jerseyans support allowing gay couples to marry by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent. A larger majority, 65 percent, said they supported civil unions that would give gays and lesbians "many of the same rights and benefits as a married man and woman," while 30 percent were opposed.

The Anscombe Society, a student group that "define[s] marriage as the exclusive and monogamous union between a man and a woman," responded to the PJP's brief by filing its own with the court last spring. The group's amicus brief was shorter and had about 30 signatures, said Sherif Girgis '08, the group's president.

"The vote came down in a pretty close split in favor of the USG signing onto the brief, so we didn't think it reflected the opinion of the vast majority of Princetonians," Girgis said in an interview last week. "We wanted a brief giving other people a chance to voice their opinion on the matter."

Gov. Jon Corzine has said that while he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, he would not oppose a decision from the court that ruled that marriage should include gay couples.

"If the Supreme Court rules that gay marriage is constitutional, the governor would not sign legislation to take away people's rights," Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the governor, told the Associated Press earlier this month.