Dec 26, 2008  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR  | COMMENTS     

Gay rights leaders in New Jersey are hopeful that a widely publicized report highlighting inequities in the state’s civil unions law will prompt the state legislature to legalize same-sex marriage in 2009, making New Jersey the first state to do so through legislation rather than a court order.

In a 79-page report released earlier this month, the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission concluded that the state’s two-year-old civil union law fails to provide same-sex couples with the same protections and rights as opposite-sex married couples.

“After 18 public meetings, 26 hours of oral testimony and hundreds of pages of written submission from more than 150 witnesses, this Commission finds that the separate categorization established by the Civil Union Act invites and encourages unequal treatment of same-sex couples and their children,” the commission’s report says.

“In a number of cases, the negative effect of the Civil Union Act on the physical and mental health of same-sex couples and their children is striking, largely because a number of employers and hospitals do not recognize the rights and benefits of marriage for civil union couples,” the report says.

Some activists believe the commission report makes such a compelling case for same-sex marriage over civil unions and domestic partnerships that it could be used by gay groups pushing for marriage rights in neighboring New York and in the District of Columbia as well as in New Jersey.

Steven Goldstein, executive director of Garden State Equality, a statewide gay advocacy group, said members of the New Jersey Legislature who have long supported a same-sex marriage bill believe they are “very close” to having enough votes to pass such a bill in 2009.

“A bill has been introduced,” he said. “It has many sponsors. And I’m optimistic.”

The New Jersey Legislature created the 13-member Civil Union Review Commission in 2006 when it passed the Civil Union Act. The legislature charged the commission with evaluating the effectiveness of civil unions for same-sex couples and to report to the legislature and governor on its findings.

Goldstein, who served as a member of the commission, said the report shows that civil unions don’t provide the same rights and benefits of marriage, as the legislature intended. But he noted that the findings also reveal other advantages to marriage that are not reflected in laws and regulations.

“What this report explains is marriage equality goes beyond getting the enumerated rights that are involved in equality,” he said. “Marriage equality is about the dignity that comes with the word and the societal imprimatur that comes with the word marriage.”

Goldstein said the commission heard from witnesses who elaborated on this theme in the course of its review of the Civil Unions Act.

“As the report details, unless it’s called marriage, you’re not going to get the rights in many, many cases,” he said. “Civil unions are not respected in the real world and domestic partners are not respected in the real world.

“Beyond that, it matters to families,” Goldstein said. “It matters for same-sex couples and their children to say they’re married, for the kids to say my parents are married.”

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine released a statement saying the commission’s findings show that civil unions appear to have resulted in “inequality” by creating a separate category of relationships.

“I encourage the legislature to seriously review the commission’s report,” he said. “I will sign marriage equality legislation when it reaches my desk.”

But Pat Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, which opposes same-sex marriage, said the commission’s findings are questionable because the governor and leaders of the legislature appointed mostly same-sex marriage supporters to its ranks.

“It’s an advocacy group,” the Associated Press quoted him as saying. “It doesn’t mean that that is the conclusion that society and people in general will come to.”

Goldstein and other commission members disputed the assertion, though, and noted that the commission consisted of six officials from state agencies, including the head of the Department of Banking & Insurance and the state’s Attorney General.

Five of the seven public members of the commission were appointed by the governor, with the consent of the State Senate, and two were appointed by leaders of the legislature.

New York marriage bill faces uncertain future

The New Jersey civil union commission report surfaced at a time when a bitter fight among Democrats in New York for control of the New York Senate appeared to place in jeopardy chances of passing a same-sex marriage bill there.

The Democratic-controlled New York State Assembly passed a same-sex marriage bill in 2007. At the time, Republicans controlled the Senate and ...