"Equality" Comes to New Jersey

A new study predicts a huge economic windfall for New Jersey if same-sex marriages were allowed.

The UCLA School of Law study predicts that New Jersey wedding- and tourism-related businesses would cash in to the tune of $102.5 million per year for the first three years, while state coffers would get $7.2 million per year in tax revenue for those years, all from introducing a gay marriage market.

“New Jersey would have no competition from other states for the expected influx of wedding-related visitors,” the study’s author, M.V. Lee Badgett, said. Badgett is the research director at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Public Policy, an academic think tank at the California school.

The study uses state tourism figures to determine what the couples would spend on lodging, meals, shopping, entertainment, flowers, photographers and other wedding expenses. Badgett also cites research by the wedding industry itself on the average costs of such ceremonies.

That same money, Badgett said, would not materialize if the state were to approve civil unions, as the state Senate and Assembly are scheduled to vote on today.

“I think very few people will come from out of state to get a civil union,” Badgett said. “Other states have them now and very few come from out of state. It’s not just about the benefits. Marriage is a deeply rooted ceremony. It’s about status. Civil unions don’t have all that historic and cultural meaning.”

I would agree with that. One thing the people don’t understand is that, while civil unions do offer some legal remedies at the state level, they do not offer a sense of being equal because they are unequal. So honestly, if New Jersey offers civil unions, which seems to be the direction they are heading, why would someone travel to the state to get a civil union, only to have it dissolve into thin air once you leave the state? I makes no sense. Connecticut certainly hasn’t seen an influx of people wanting a Connecticut civil union. Indeed, most gay couples here don’t want it either.

The article talks about all the money it would bring to the state IF it were a real marriage. That is undoubtedly true. New Jersey, unlike Massachusetts, does not have a residency law. That means that people like Kent and myself could travel to New Jersey if they did offer marriage, get married, and then return to Connecticut with a marriage license. We would then turn around and ask Connecticut to honor that marriage. If they didn’t (and they wouldn’t because Connecticut has in it’s Civil Union law a definition of marriage as “one man, one woman”), we could bring a lawsuit against the state because they were not honoring our marriage. That would be rejected because the national Defense of Marriage Act states that no state has to honor a same sex marriage from another state. We would therefore, with a real marriage license in hand, be able to challenge the national Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that it denies equal protection under the law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Don’t worry, this will happen, in time.

But this is not all about money....

Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, said he favors civil unions and would not be swayed by the new study.

“Sometimes you have to look beyond dollars and cents. This is an issue far greater than dollar value. It has social, ethical, religious and legal implications. Our job is to fulfill the legal issue, and we can do that with civil unions,” Van Drew said.

He’s right. Sometimes you do have to look beyond dollars and cents. He states that “it has social, ethical, religious and legal implications.” He’s right.

Social Implications: Socially, the implications are simple. Civil unions create a sub-class of citizens and sets them apart from other citizens.

Ethical Implications: Is it ethical to treat a targeted group of people differently on a civil, social level?

Religious Implications: There are no religious implications in this decision, and if there are, THERE SHOULDN’T BE! This is CIVIL marriage we are talking about - not religious marriage. The two are completely separate things. One deals completely in religion. Civil marriage is given by the state. The state has no business telling a religious organization what marriages should be issued on a religious level. Also, religious organizations have no business telling the state what marriages it will honor.

Legal Implications: The legal implications are huge. Everyone, including Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew want to believe that the “job is to fulfill the legal issue, and we can do that with civil unions”, but that simply is not the case. I can’t carry a civil union to Kansas, or Idaho, or Wisconsin. I can’t ask the federal government to honor a civil union, because there is no such entity at the federal level. And, the federal government, at least with the morons in power now, have not indicated that they are even open to the idea of civil unions. But that’s ok. To their defense, they do have a few hot irons in the fire that aren’t going to well right now.

So, while Assemblyman Van Drew would love to think that they are doing their job, a New Jersey civil union will do nothing for the big ticket items at the federal level. A civil union is simply a feel-good stopgap that goes nowhere.

I would love to see the New Jersey Supreme Court, who have said they believe in equality, to state the obvious. If they are serious about this issue, they will strike this down as not good enough, just as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did. They should state, “We are looking for the word ‘marriage’ here.”

This is how “equal” the New Jersey civil unions will be:

Lawyers examining New Jersey’s civil unions proposal say same-sex couples cannot file joint federal tax returns. To file jointly on their state tax forms, they will need to fill out the joint federal forms and send them to New Jersey.

Gay couples will also be required to report health insurance benefits as income, unlike married couples.

Surviving partners won't be able to collect deceased partners’ Social Security benefits and may not be able to collect their pensions, which fall under federal regulation.

I thought that the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that there should be equality. Maybe “equality” is a legal term open to interpretation?

Sources cited
Gay weddings could bring big money to N.J.
N.J. legislature to vote on civil unions bill; silences LGBT couples’ voices
Civil Unions Give N.J. Gay Couples More Benefits