New Jersey's Supreme Court Decision on Gay "Marriage"

Quite a bit of reaction on the New Jersey Supreme Court's ruling yesterday. It has a lot of people in the pointing to Wisconsin's Marriage Amendment saying, "See?? This is why we have to VOTE YES!!"

As QuickDraw McGraw would say, "Hold on thar..."

New Jersey's case is DIFFERENT than what is happening in Wisconsin. In New Jersey, gays and lesbians are a protected class, which means that the state's anti-discrimination laws apply to them. Their state laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

To my knowledge, Wisconsin's anti-discrimination laws do NOT include this clause. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

This appears to be the nail that the NJ Supreme Court hung its hat on. The Court did not find that gay marriage is a right. They found that, because of the anti-discrimination laws, equal rights/protections/benefits had to be extended to gay couples as they are a similar class of citizens as married man/woman couples.

In addition, New Jersey, historically, has been a very gay-friendly state, there is other legislation that passed in recent times (through the legislature, not the courts) that offered many benefits and protections to gays/lesbians through domestic partnerships. The Court also took that into consideration. They felt that they had no other choice but to provide the remaining marriage benefits because they could not find a good reason not to.

Wisconsin has not offered gays/lesbians any protections/benefits through domestic partnership legislation. Wisconsin is not as gay-friendly as New Jersey. Wisconsin does not include gays/lesbians in its anti-discrimination laws. Wisconsin AIN'T New Jersey!

While I agree that gay marriage should not be ordered by the courts, the situation in Wisconsin is not the same as in New Jersey. The hand-wringing on the pro-amendment side over what happened in New Jersey yesterday is over-reaction.

I'm still voting NO.