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The New York Times
NJ Civil Unions Fall
Short, Panel Told
By AP from the
nytimes.com on the Web, September 27, 2007
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey's
civil unions law has failed to provide all the benefits of marriage to at least
one in five same-sex couples, a gay rights group told a panel Wednesday that
will report its findings to the governor and state Legislature.
More than 300 of the 1,514 same-sex couples who have joined in civil unions have
complained to Garden State Equality, the state's leading gay rights group, about
employers denying them benefits under the law, said David M. Smith, the group's
deputy director.
''If this law is a failure, and people's rights are at stake, why must we wait
to fix the problem?'' asked Thomas H. Prol, a state Bar Association trustee and
former co-chairman of the group's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Rights
Committee.
Smith and more than 20 others shared their experiences with the civil unions law
-- all negative -- during a hearing Wednesday to review the law's effectiveness.
The law is supposed to provide those who take advantage of it with all the
benefits that married couples enjoy.
Those appearing before the Civil Union Review Commission included parents of gay
adults, gay rights advocates, lawyers and gay couples, some with children in
tow. All urged the Legislature to change the law to include the word
''marriage,'' and no one spoke in favor of reducing gay couples' rights.
Craig Ross said that when he lost his white-collar job and tried to get benefits
on his partner's plan, the couple were denied despite their civil union because
they aren't ''married.''
''Calling our relationship and our legal status a civil union, I believe, gives
my company an easy out,'' Ross said. ''Calling it what it is -- a marriage
-- makes denial of those benefits obvious for what it is: discrimination.''
Ross and Richard Cash are among 30 same-sex couples who signed a letter to the
governor and legislative leaders describing financial and emotional damage
caused by what they call shortcomings in the civil unions law.
New Jersey adopted the law in December and enacted it in April after the state
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples access to
marriage protections. The legislation also created the special commission,
which held the first of three public hearings Wednesday. It is to report
its findings twice a year.
Beth Robinson, chairwoman of Freedom to Marry in Vermont, which has had a civil
unions law similar to New Jersey's for more than seven years, cautioned that the
passage of time will not bring marriage equality.
''This is not a privilege, this is not a right, this is about justice,'' said
Tom Barbera, a labor leader in Massachusetts, the only state that allows
same-sex couples to marry, a right created by the top court in that state.
Len Deo, president of a group called the New Jersey Family Policy Council,
complained last week that the Civil Union Review Commission was created ''to
turn civil unions to full-fledged marriage.''
The group is pushing for a state constitutional amendment that would ban
marriage between same-sex couples. The Legislature would have to support
an amendment before it went to a popular vote, but the Democrats who control
both houses oppose such a vote.
Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel
contributed to this report.
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