A New Jersey Superior Court judge last week allowed a lawsuit that seeks to secure marriage equality in the state to proceed.
Superior Court Assignment Judge Linda Feinberg ruled last Friday that the plaintiffs, a group of same-sex couples and LGBT organization Garden State Equality, should be allowed to demonstrate in court that the state’s civil-union law is failing.
A trial date was not yet set.
In 2006, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the state legislature to provide same-sex couples the same rights afforded to heterosexual couples, which lawmakers did by legalizing civil unions.
In 2010, after the legislature failed to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples, the plaintiffs, represented by Lambda Legal, filed suit, arguing that the law is not widely understood, leading to discrimination. The suit argued the civil-union law violates same-sex couples’ constitutional rights to equal protection and due process and state guarantee of equal protection.
In her ruling last week, Feinberg allowed the state argument to proceed but dismissed the federal claims.
Haley Gorenberg, Lambda Legal deputy legal director, said the agency was “delighted” the judge gave the OK for the organization to “demonstrate how the legislature’s crafting of a status other than marriage for same-sex couples has failed to provide them the equality promised by the New Jersey Constitution. Civil union relegates New Jersey’s same-sex couples to a second-class status that keeps them and their families vulnerable.”
A few days before Feinberg’s decision, the state Attorney General’s Office filed a motion calling for the dismissal of the suit, as the office contended that the civil-union law lives up to the mandates set forth by the Supreme Court and failures of the law should be handled on an individual basis.
Gorenberg said dismissal would have prevented plaintiffs from illustrating the harm the civil-union law causes same-sex couples.
“New Jersey’s exclusion interferes during medical crises, denies them health insurance and leads to discrimination against them even in funeral homes,” she said. “These families need marriage equality and should not have to live with a law that treats them as inferior.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].