Gay couples praise N.J.'s domestic partner law,
but want more
KATHY HENNESSY, from The Miami Herald.com on the Web, May 1, 2004
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Knowing they had few rights as a couple, Marty Finkle and Mike Plake hired a lawyer to draft four documents - including a will and a health care proxy - that are supposed to protect the other if one gets sick or dies.
Starting July 1, Finkle and Plake will need just one piece of paper to legally prove their relationship. That's when New Jersey's domestic partnership law takes effect, giving gay couples the right to make medical decisions for each other and to file joint state tax returns.
But it's still not even close to the rights married couples get.
"I am thrilled that we have taken this step, but it's almost like having to go to separate water fountains," said Plake, 41, from the cozy, two-story home the couple share. "I'll never be satisfied with just this."
While many of the state's gay couples support the state's domestic partnership law, the debate over same-sex marriage looms as legal challenges continue in courtrooms across the country.
In March, same-sex couples flocked to Asbury Park after two men became the first gay couple to be married by city officials. The state attorney general quickly deemed that union invalid.
For now, homosexual couples are focusing on the state's domestic partnership law, which they say will at least provide guidelines for how gay partners can live as a family unit.
Civil rights groups have praised New Jersey's leaders as progressive and fair-minded in passing the law.
New Jersey's law makes it the fourth state to provide legal rights to gay relationships. Vermont legalized civil unions in 1999, and California and Hawaii recognize domestic partnerships. Other states have given limited rights to gay unions, such as partner benefits for state employees.
"It puts New Jersey as one of the leading states that recognize same-sex couples should be treated with the same equity compared to married couples," said Seth Kilbourn, national field director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization.
For Veronica Hoff, a 49-year-old state worker, it means if she is rushed to the hospital with brain swelling as she was seven years ago, her partner, Forest Kairos, won't be left in the dark.
At the time, doctors wouldn't even speak to Kairos, 32, or let her see Hoff.
The new law will allow gay couples to visit each other in a hospital when family or spouses would typically be allowed in.
"People are struggling and trying their best to deal with day-to-day issues that marriage laws were created in order to resolve," Hoff said. "You have a whole class of people that were left without any sort of real framework."
To obtain domestic partnership benefits, same-sex couples would have to show they live together and provide proof of joint financial or property ownership. They could also name a partner as a beneficiary in a will or retirement plan.
Same-sex partnerships granted in other states will be honored by New Jersey. The law will also provide legal benefits for unmarried heterosexual couples over age 62.
Couples will be able to register for partnership status at any municipal office in the state. To end a partnership, a divorce-like proceeding in Superior Court is required.
The symbolism of the law is more important to Sam Delgado and Mark Newton, who don't expect the measure to bring much personal benefit to them. Like Plake and Finkle, they have a will, legal power of attorney and other legal documents to prove their relationship.
The Plainfield couple's life revolves more around their two busy toddlers than the politics of equality. They hope to adopt the boys, who are in the state's foster care program.
"I think you have to give Jersey credit," said Newton, 44. "I don't think anybody expected it to happen so fast."
Some of the excitement for the domestic partnership law diminished for many gay couples when they saw local officials across the nation defy laws by marrying homosexual couples.
From gay activists in Washington, D.C., to same-sex couples in small towns across New Jersey and the rest of the country, nearly all agree that gay marriage is the ultimate goal.
"My feeling is, why can't we have what everyone else has?" Delgado, 37, asked.
No states have legalized gay marriage and the U.S. Supreme Court has never been asked to rule on a same-sex union. In Massachusetts, same-sex marriage will become legal on May 17 by edict of the state Supreme Court, but officials there are fighting it.
While many political leaders express support for domestic partnerships, few have endorsed gay marriage.
In New Jersey, Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg cried with joy as Gov. James E. McGreevey signed the domestic partnership legislation in January.
Weinberg, D-Bergen, predicts New Jersey lawmakers will increase gay rights "when people find out the state didn't fall apart" under the partnership law. Marriage will take more time, she said.
"I think it's something people in the U.S. are not ready for," Weinberg said. "I see a time in the future, but probably not in my lifetime."
Opponents feel that even the domestic partnership law goes too far.
William F. Bolan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, says that the new law is merely a step away from legalizing gay marriage.
"Throughout history, marriage has been the union of one man and one woman," Bolan said. "We believe it offered stability to society by forming the physical, economic and cultural base for the orderly procreation, nurturing and education of the next generation."
Gay activists say the fight for gay marriage will go on.
"I can't tell you what it means both emotionally and legally for my partner and I to be recognized in the eyes of the state," said Steven Goldstein, the New Jersey campaign manager for gay rights group Lambda Legal. "But those who thought the domestic partnership law would be enough to assuage the gay and lesbian community are gravely mistaken."
Some believe the public will ultimately demand change, the way it did to gain civil rights for blacks and voting rights for women.
"We have an important tradition of shedding tradition when we believe it to be discriminatory," said Suzanne Goldberg, a Rutgers University law school professor who specializes in women's and gay and lesbian civil rights.
"It used to be that married women were the property of their husband and that was natural. We as a society abandoned that because it did not fit," she said.
Many gay couples agree with Newton, who hopes for a time when his union with Delgado won't be defined by what makes it different but instead by what makes it the same as any other spousal relationship.
"We are two normal guys, we have a neat house and two great kids we are raising," said Newton. "I think it's a lot more important that people see what we are and that we are the same as anybody else. We just happen to be the same sex."
|
