The key passage in the ruling.
Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.
You will hear screams about activists judges but you just go read that passage again. The ruling is based on the wording of a constitution written by the people of New Jersey through the legislative process. The judges simply ruled on the law. That's exactly the way things are supposed to work.
Source: Star-Ledger is probably going to be the place to be on this one.
2 comments:
There was the same state constitutional basis in the Massachusetts decision and people still claimed it was an activist ruling. Even though Mass. had for years had state laws prohibiting virtually any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Completely agree. Which is what made the Mass hullabaloo so utterly ridiculous.
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