NJ Rules in favor of Gay Marriages

CNN is reporting that the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the state must change its laws within six-months to provide for same sex marriages.

TRENTON, New Jersey (CNN) -- In a decision likely to stoke the contentious election-year debate over same-sex marriage, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that state lawmakers must provide the rights and benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples.

The high court on Wednesday gave legislators six months to either change state marriage laws to include same-sex couples, or come up with another mechanism, such as civil unions, that would provide the same protections and benefits.

The court's vote was 4-to-3. But the ruling was more strongly in favor of same-sex marriage than that split would indicate. The three dissenting justices argued the court should have extended full marriage rights to homosexuals, without kicking the issue back to legislators.

I'm not going to get into a Halachic debate on this one, but rather that I 100% support this decision. It's clear what the Torah's position is on homosexuality and studies showing that kids need a mother and a father don't really matter in this debate - this is about the law.

Reread the second paragraph from the article. New Jersey must create same sex marriages or "come up with another mechanism, such as civil unions, that would provide the same protections and benefits." This is the position that I've been advocating for years. Marriage, I believe, can only be between a man and a woman but in a society that has removed the inherent religiosity from the equation by allowing a Justice of the Peace to marry two people then we must allow same sex unions - Civil Unions - to include homosexual couples.

I also believe that this is fundamentally a state's rights issue and that a state (e.g. Texas) does not have to allow these unions if the legislature and judiciary decide not to. But - in defiance of the Defense of Marriage Act - I do not believe that states can ignore the Constitutional Full Faith and Credit clause. That law - signed by Clinton in 1996 - is wrong and should never have been allowed to pass. Where's Judicial Review when you need it?