Six same-sex couples who filed suit several years ago seeking the right to marry in the Garden State returned to court last week.
National LGBT advocacy organization Lambda Legal filed a motion in New Jersey Supreme Court March 18 on behalf of the couples, asking the top court to revisit its 2006 decision on the issue and grant full-marriage rights to same-sex couples.
In its previous ruling, the court found that same-sex couples were entitled to the same rights and obligations as heterosexual couples and ordered the state to enact legislation to that end. Later that year, the state legislature legalized civil unions for same-sex couples.
In 2008, however, the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission, which was created as part of the civil-union law to track its progress, found that many same-sex couples were not being treated as “married” by employers, insurance companies and other entities and recommended that the extension of full-marriage rights was the only way to ensure equality.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey Senate failed to pass a marriage-equality law, after which Lambda Legal vowed to return to court.
“The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered equality for same-sex couples when it decided our marriage lawsuit in 2006, and the legislature has failed to meet that crystal-clear obligation,” said Hayley Gorenberg, deputy legal director at Lambda Legal. “Civil unions are a failed legislative experiment in providing equality in New Jersey. Marriage equality is the only solution.”
Lambda Legal will be assisted by pro-bono counsel from law firm Gibbons PC in the case. Six of the seven couples who were listed as plaintiffs in the original Lewis v. Harris case have returned, as well as the surviving partner of the seventh couple, in the latest filing.
The motion filed last week notes that the state legislature listened to hours of testimony from same-sex couples who’d faced discrimination, and that many lawmakers asserted that the civil-union law was not working properly.
“In the face of this evidence, the legislature chose to do nothing, consigning plaintiffs, as well as thousands of lesbians and gay men and their children, to a second-class status that perpetuates discrimination,” the motion states.
The filing outlines numerous narratives from the plaintiffs about their experiences with the law. For instance, Chris Lodewyks, who has been with his partner, Craig Hutchison, for 38 years, described that he had to explain to the clerk issuing his civil union what that designation meant, and Cindy Meneghin and Maureen Kilian, a couple for 35 years, said they were forced to explain their relationship repeatedly to hospital officials when Meneghin was in the emergency room, which she said was “insulting and demeaning.”
The filing urged the court to recognize the inherent “separate but equal status” created by the civil-union law and compel “the state to comply with what this court previously ordered in ‘Lewis’: full equality for committed same-sex couples in New Jersey. It is now clear that Lewis’ mandate can be implemented only by allowing same-sex couples to marry.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].