Marriage Equality going to lower courts

by: Hopeful

Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 12:26:09 PM EDT

In a split decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to hear a case from six same-sex couples seeking the right to marry, saying the case needs to wind its way through the lower courts first.

"This matter cannot be decided without the development of an appropriate trial-like record," wrote Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, who added that "We reach no conclusion on the merits of the plaintiffs' allegations regarding the constitutionality of the Civil Union Act."

Of course we know that this longer process will not deter those seeking equality.

Here is Garden State Equality's news release and legal brief on the case from May.  

Update from Rosi:
Essentially, the Lewis v. Harris plaintiffs here were seeking a court remedy, going back to Court because the remedy ordered in the 2006 case - ordering the Legislature to deliver equal protection to same-sex couples by whatever means it devised - did not work. And that's because the Legislature chose civil unions. And civil unions do not deliver equal protection to same-sex couples.

There's plenty of evidence of that, but the evidence submitted to the Court - which included testimony to the Civil Unions Review Commission and sworn certifications - was not subject to cross-examination, as would happen in a formal court proceeding.

The court's position is that it cannot rule without the development of a full trial-like record, and therefore plaintiffs have to start all over, filing a new lawsuit. The vote was 3-3, but a tie in the Supreme Court produces no action.

The "minority" opinion agrees there is not sufficient evidence to rule on the merits, but also recognizes "plaintiffs detail a host of workplace, public accomodation, family law, economic, and various other 'rights and privileges" that they say are not afforded to them. And that if plaintiffs' allegations are true, "the constitutional inequities should be addressed without any unnecessary delay." So the dissenters argued the next step should have been the development of that record, presumably before the Supreme Court, or at a minimum, oral argument to help the Court determine what the best and most expeditious procedural route to developing that record would be.

If Justice John Wallace was still sitting on the New Jersey State Supreme Court, we might have had a different outcome today.  

The three justices who voted in the dissent all have tenure; the three who declined to act (including Chief Justice Stuart Rabner) all have to be reappointed by Christie.

Here is the Supreme Court decision, filed today.

Update by Rosi: Statement from Garden State Equality Chair Steven Goldstein is just below the fold.

Because of the legislature's inability to act and the Supreme Court's decision today, New Jersey continues in a caste system where an entire people are thrown aside into a profoundly inferior status, spit on, dumped on, utterly degraded, by hospitals and employers who mock the term 'civil union.'  Children will continue to live with an imprimatur of inferiority,  psychologically devastated because they can't marry or because their same-sex parents cannot marry.  Same-sex couples will continue to be denied the consistent right to visit one another in the hospital, to make medical decisions for one another, and to receive equal health benefits from employers, all because of the deprivation of the equality and dignity that uniquely comes with the word 'marriage.'

We at Garden State Equality will never give up - not until our dying breath.  Since our founding in 2004, New Jersey has enacted 211 laws at the state, county and local levels advancing the civil rights of LGBT community, a record matched in few other places in the world.  It's because we and our allies, including so many predominantly straight organizations across New Jersey, never gave up and never gave in.  And we never will give up or give in, so help us God.  

Cesar Chavez said it best.  You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read.  You cannot humiliate the people who feel pride.  You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.