N.J. gay couples to file lawsuit demanding partnerships be recognized as marriages

lambda-legal.JPGHayley Gorenberg, deputy director of Lambda Legal, spoke while attending the rally for marriage equality at the Statehouse Annex in Trenton last July.

TRENTON — The battle for gay marriage in New Jersey is about to be reignited.

A New Jersey gay rights organization, seven same-sex couples and several of their children say they will file a suit in state Superior Court today demanding the partnerships be recognized not as civil unions, but as marriages.

The lawsuit comes days after New York signed gay marriage into law, which will go into effect next month.

But in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie has vowed to veto any gay marriage bill approved by the Legislature, the courts are the only realistic option for same-sex partners who hope to marry any time soon.

"Gov. Christie says no way will there be marriage equality in New Jersey," said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization that is the lead plaintiff in the suit. "And we say no way are we going to listen to him."

New Jersey allows civil unions for gay couples, and the state has automatically recognized same-sex marriages performed in other states or foreign countries as civil unions since 2007. Over the last year and half, the movement for gay marriage in New Jerey has suffered two major setbacks. In January, 2010 — weeks before Christie took office — the state Senate rejected a bill that would have legalized it.

Several Democrats either voted no or did not cast a vote. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who did not cast a vote, recently said he should have voted yes and called it the "most embarrassing moment of my political career" in a radio call-in show.

Six months later, the state Supreme Court declined to hear the case, ruling that it needed to work its way through the trial courts. That led to today’s lawsuit.

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The suit contends civil unions are a "badge of inferiority" for same-sex couples. Although civil unions are meant to grant the state’s 5,417 civil union couples the same rights as heterosexual married couples, the suit argues that is far from the case in practical terms.

"Today, New Jersey shunts lesbian and gay couples into the novel and inferior status of ‘civil union,’ while reserving civil marriage only for heterosexual couples," it read.

The suit outlines how William Keith Heimann’s health insurance policy dropped his two children and his 25-year partner, Thomas Davidson, after a contractor conducting an audit "questioned whether they had adequate documentation of their relationship." The lawsuit says it took months to reinstate the policy, even though Davidson and Heimann were in a civil union.

The suit also outlines Danny Weiss’s struggle to make health care treatment decisions for his civil union partner, John Grant, after Grant was struck by a car in New York City.

"Despite their civil union, doctors and hospital staff did not recognize their legal relationship," the suit says. "Discussions with doctors and other hospital staff about what a civil union meant, and whether it was ‘like marriage,’ took place as John was suffering from a brain hemorrhage."

Eventually, hospital staff summoned Grant’s sister in Delaware to help make decisions.

But Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, says civil unions are working fine, adding that stories of them not providing the same rights as marriage are overblown.

Deo said that when he last checked, from 12 to 15 civil union couples had filed complaints with the New Jersey Civil Rights Commission — which the civil union law instructed to review them.

"I think they have a very high threshold to prove to the court that the civil unions legislation is not functioning," he said. "We’re not fighting against civil unions. We understand that’s the law in New Jersey now. But we will stand to defend marriage as remaining between one man and one woman."

Hayley, Gorenberg, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, said many don’t even know the option to contact the commission exists, and noted that a commission created to review civil unions found they did not provide equal rights.

"But I think what speaks more is when the civil union review commission did review its hearings and when the Senate Judiciary Committee held its hearings, they heard a lot (of stories)," she said. "Even senators who were not supporters of marriage equality acknowleged that civil unions were falling down on the job."

Megan DeMarco contributed to this report.

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