N.J. to Honor
Out-Of-State Gay Marriages
By GEOFF MULVIHILL.
AP from washingtonpost.com February 16, 2007
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. -- Gay
couples who legally married elsewhere will have all the rights of married people
in New Jersey, but they can't call themselves married, the state's attorney
general decided Friday.
New Jersey should consider those couples to be in civil unions rather than
marriages, Attorney General Stuart Rabner said in the opinion for the state
Department of Health and Senior Services, which is responsible for registering
civil unions.
Civil unions, which will be available in New Jersey starting Monday, grant all
the benefits of marriage to gay couples.
Gay rights activists were happy to have the clarity and to learn that the civil
unions will be granted automatically, but said recognizing marriages as civil
unions is unfair and possibly discriminatory.
"That seems like the fairest thing under the circumstances," said Joan Hervey, a
Plainfield woman who went to Canada to marry her partner. "It will be
perfect once they call it marriage."
Gay couples married in Massachusetts, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa and
Spain will be recognized as civil union partners, as will couples who have
entered into civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut. Domestic partners in
California -- where domestic partnership works much like a New Jersey civil
union -- will also be considered civil unions.
Couples who have domestic partnerships with lesser obligations and benefits than
marriage, such as those in Maine and Washington, D.C., will be considered
domestic partners in New Jersey.
Domestic partnerships, available in the Garden State for nearly three years and
offer only a handful of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.
New Jersey lawmakers voted in December to create civil unions after the state
Supreme Court in October forced their hand. The court ruled in favor of
extending all the rights of same-sex couples, but left implementation to
lawmakers.
(Abridged)
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