Press release from Garden State Equality:
Those who would view today’s Supreme Court ruling as a victory for same-sex couples are dead wrong. So help us God, New Jersey’s LGBTI community and our millions of straight allies will settle for nothing less than 100% marriage equality. Let decision makers from Morristown to Moorestown, from Maplewood to Maple Shade, recognize that fundamental fact right now.
So today, without missing a beat, Garden State Equality announces that Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, the Assembly Speaker Pro Tem, joined by Assemblyman Brian Stack and Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, will introduce marriage-equality legislation. Thousands of us will now hit the streets, the phones and the hallways to get this legislation passed.
As the late Lt. Laurel Hester and too many other cases across New Jersey have shown, half-steps short of marriage — like New Jersey’s domestic-partnership law and also civil union laws — don’t work in the real world. Hospitals and other employers have told domestic-partnered couples across New Jersey: We don’t care what the domestic partnership law says. You’re not married.
That’s why it wouldn’t matter if the legislature added all the rights in the world to the current law without calling it marriage. Marriage is the only currency of commitment the real world universally understands and accepts.
We’re not seeking marriage merely for some moral, ethereal victory. We’re seeking marriage because New Jersey has proven that marriage is the only way a gay civil rights law will ever work in the real world…
As you’ve seen from Garden State Equality’s hundreds of events and thousands of e-mails over the past few years — a breathless pace of activity that’s not going to abate, so help us God — we never give up and we never give in to those who tell us no.
Hell no. Over our dead bodies will we settle for less than 100% marriage equality. The people of New Jersey wouldn’t want us to. According to the 2006 Zogby-Garden State Equality Poll, New Jersey favors marriage equality by 56% to 39%. Every other recent poll in New Jersey also shows a majority of voters favor marriage equality.
Don’t count gay marriage out in New Jersey. Its supporters are going to fight, and fight hard.
I think Goldstein was WAAAAYYYY wrong to characterize this as anything OTHER than a major victory. A unanimous decision in favor of dramatically improving the legal status of committed gay couples? It may not have been the slam-dunk of “you can all get married tomorrow,” but to say we are “dead wrong” was a hurtful mischaracterization. I hope he retracted that.