MARRIAGE
New Jersey Looks to Codify Marriage Equality
Legislation moves through Assembly committee amid fears over SCOTUS
BY MATT TRACY
In the face of growing anxiety
over the Supreme Court’s
conservative tilt, state lawmakers
in New Jersey are
moving quickly to pass marriage
equality legislation.
The New Jersey Assembly’s Judiciary
Committee unanimously
passed a marriage equality bill on
December 9 and the measure is
expected to clear both houses of
the State Legislature by the end
of the year, according to Garden
State Equality, a statewide LGBTQ
advocacy group.
New Jersey established equal
marriage rights through a 2013
state Superior Court ruling after
Governor Chris Christie, a Republican,
had previously vetoed a marriage
equality bill. Following that
court decision, an effort to codify
marriage equality was unsuccessful
because of criticism over
religious exemptions in the legislation.
Two years later, the Supreme
Court’s ruling in Obergefell v.
Hodges extended marriage rights
to the entire nation.
New Jersey residents are legally
able to marry — like anyone else
in the United States — but there
is concern of a slippery slope
that could emerge if the Supreme
Court eviscerates Roe v. Wade or
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, two
landmark cases affi rming abortion
rights.
“We have talked about this a
few times in the past with our legislative
allies,” Lauren Albrecht,
who serves as Garden State
Equality’s policy consultant, told
Gay City News in a phone interview
December 13. “We can never
be sure about anything. When
it comes to equal rights for our
New Jersey lawmakers hope to fi nally put marriage equality into law before the end of the year.
community, we can’t leave it up
for chance.”
Last year, Supreme Court Justices
Samuel Alito and Clarence
Thomas — two members of the
emboldened conservative wing —
ranted against marriage equality
and reiterated their disdain with
the Obergefell ruling, which has
returned to the spotlight as abortion
rights come under siege. During
December 1 oral arguments
for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization, a Mississippi
abortion case, Justice Brett
Kavanaugh raised some eyebrows
when he posed a question about
the tendency of the court to follow
precedent.
“If you think about some of the
most important cases, the most
consequential cases in this court’s
history, there’s a string of them
where the cases overruled precedent,”
said Kavanaugh, who cited
cases such as Lawrence v. Texas,
which overturned laws against
same-sex sexual conduct. “If we
think that the prior precedents are
seriously wrong, if that, why then
doesn’t the history of this court’s
practice with respect to those cases
tell us that the right answer is
actually a return to the position of
neutrality and — and not stick with
those precedents in the same way
that all those other cases didn’t?”
Some LGBTQ legal experts, however,
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/LOWLOVA
say the community should
avoid reading too much into Kavanaugh’s
statements.
“The only reason Justice Kavanaugh
mentioned Obergefell
and Lawrence, along with Brown
v. Board of Education, was to cite
them as examples of cases in which
the Supreme Court clearly did the
right thing,” Shannon Minter, the
legal director for the National Center
for Lesbian Rights, told the Los
Angeles Blade.
In any event, lawmakers are
moving forward — and State Senate
President Steve Sweeney hopes
to pass the legislation in the upper
chamber on December 20, according
to Politico. Sweeney voiced his
concern about the likelihood of
“gutting” Roe v. Wade, saying, “If
they can do that, same-sex marriage
can be the next thing.”
Assemblymember Valerie Vainieri
Huttle of Bergen, who was the
prime sponsor of a previous marriage
bill in the state, is again
spearheading the bill in the lower
chamber.
“At the time, I received considerable
backlash for my support
of the LGBTQ community, as did
many of my colleagues,” Huttle
said in a written statement. “I am
proud to once again be leading the
charge to ensure that the rights of
the LGBTQ community are safeguarded.”
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