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N.J. gays who would wed must wait By BOB CULLINANE, APP.COM from the Web, March 7, 2004 Asbury Park, NJ -- As the nationwide debate over gay marriage churns almost daily with new reports of maverick mayors performing same-sex ceremonies, New Jersey residents may wonder if the issue -- and the ceremonies -- will surface here soon. "There is nothing to prevent New Jersey public officials from acting on their principles" and performing a same-sex marriage, said Michael Adams, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a national legal organization at the center of efforts to achieve civil and marriage rights for same-sex couples. But while there may be nothing stopping them, several Shore mayors contacted said they don't expect to perform gay marriages anytime soon. "In New Jersey, we don't issue marriage licenses for same-sex applicants," Tinton Falls Mayor Ann McNamara said. "And I'm not about to break the law" by officiating at the marriage of a same-sex couple. McNamara, who is also the president of the New Jersey Council of Mayors and has officiated at numerous marriage ceremonies, said she has not heard of any requests for a New Jersey mayor to perform a gay marriage. "It doesn't mean it hasn't happened," she said, "but I think I would have heard about it." Dover Mayor Paul C. Brush, who has already performed five traditional marriage ceremonies since taking office in January, said he has not been asked to officiate at a gay marriage and would refuse if asked. "I intend to accommodate anyone who asks me" to officiate at a wedding, Brush said, "because I believe in marriage. But I don't think gay marriage is appropriate in our society, and I wouldn't do it." Brush said even if New Jersey approves the marriage of same-sex couples, he would decline to perform such ceremonies. He also expressed reservations about amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, as President Bush suggested last week, preferring to address the issue through the establishment of laws. Brush, like the Lambda lawyer Adams, called the recent episodes of gay marriage ceremonies in places like New Paltz, N.Y., "symbolic acts" that are likely unenforceable by law. Indeed, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on Thursday said the same-sex ceremonies performed in New York were not legal and the state has refused to issue marriage licenses to those couples. Bradley Beach Mayor Stephen G. Schueler said he is not against gay relationships, but would need to do "more research on the legal issues involved" if he were asked to officiate at a same-sex marriage. Schueler said he, too, is opposed to a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and draws similarities between the fight for gay marriage rights and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. "As always, it takes people to challenge existing laws" in order to effect social changes, Schueler said. "The mayors who have performed these (same-sex) marriages are brave individuals who are in the forefront of the social debate" over the issue. Battle in the courts While same-sex marriages ceremonies in places like San Francisco and New York attract the public spotlight, the real action in the war over gay marriage rights is taking place in the courts, the Lambda attorney Adams said. And in that regard, New Jersey is a key battleground. "We're about two years ahead of everyone else here in New Jersey," Adams said of efforts to achieve marriage and equal civil rights for gay couples. He cited as an example a lawsuit now in the state courts that argues same-sex couples are being denied their rights under the state constitution because they cannot marry. That lawsuit, filed by Lambda in 2002 on behalf of seven New Jersey same-sex couples -- including one from Aberdeen -- will ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court. New Jersey also recently passed the Domestic Partnership bill, which was signed by Gov. McGreevey in January and is expected to become law this July. That bill grants a host of legal rights to same-sex couples, but stops well short of permitting same-sex marriage or granting the hundreds more civil protections that accompany marriage, Adams said. Perhaps the only state significantly further along the path to granting marriage rights to same-sex couples is Massachusetts, where the state Supreme Court has ordered state officials to begin issuing marriages licenses to same sex-couples starting this May. That's where Jessie, 29, and Stacey Harris, 35, of Ocean Township plan to get married once the licenses are available. Want marriage rights The Harrises, who were joined 10 years ago in a wedding ceremony performed by a Unitarian minister and who now live at the Shore with their two children, "would be the first in line" to get married should same-sex marriage become legal, Jessie said. "The idea that (same-sex couples) will be able to walk into any institutional setting and expect the same benefits (as married couples) is very exciting to me," Jessie said. "We are so close . . . so close, that some-times when I think about the possibility, it moves me to tears." She called the rapidly unfolding events surrounding the issue of gay marriage "an extraordinary civil rights movement playing out every morning on TV and in the newspapers. It's just an amazing, fantastic thing." The Harrises, who operate a Web business devoted to gay and lesbian family clothing and gifts -- www.familyevolutions.com -- moved to New Jersey from Massachusetts a year ago and will likely go back to and get married in their "home state" when it begins issuing marriage licenses, Jessie said. For Joe D'Andrea of Asbury Park, the issue of gay marriage is also squarely framed by the larger issue of civil rights. "It's all about equality," said D'Andrea, 50, a gay man who is also the publisher of the Web site gayasburypark.com. "It's about protecting our rights as individuals." Civil union not enough D'Andrea, who plans to hold a commitment ceremony with his partner in a local church, also rejects the idea of civil unions, like the ones now avail-able in Vermont. Those unions allow same-sex couples the same legal privileges as married couples, yet do not allow same-sex couples to marry. The rights those unions grant are also not enforceable outside Vermont. "That's a case of separate, but not equal," D'Andrea said of the civil unions. "It's like having two water fountains and calling them equal, but then saying you can drink out of this one but not that one. A civil union is not enough." Still, D'Andrea sees a growing momentum for the rights of gays to marry, despite vocal opposition and the call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. "If President Bush wants to protect marriage," D'Andrea said, "then he should propose a constitutional amendment banning divorce." D'Andrea said he and his partner would likely consider marriage if it became legal for them to wed in New Jersey. John Campbell and his partner Richard Harrison of Edison probably won't wait for New Jersey, Campbell said. The couple, who entered into a civil union in Vermont in 2000, will probably head to Massachusetts in May, said Campbell, who is an activist and organizer of the Gay and Lesbian Political Action and Support Groups (www.gaypasg.org). And though he will go out-of-state to be wed, Campbell said it won't be long before same-sex marriages are performed here in New Jersey. "The genie is out of the bottle," Campbell said. "It's gonna happen and it's gonna happen soon."
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