Author: hankkalet

The decision is out. The state Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have won all the rights and benefits of marriage, but it refused to answer the question of whether the word “marriage” should apply.

The key to the ruling is the court’s no-nonsense denunciation of discrimination. The court was pretty clear about the discrimination issue:

With this State’s legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1.

It went on to add:

The seeming ordinariness of plaintiffs’ lives is belied by the social indignities and economic ifficulties that they daily face due to the inferior legal standing of their relationships compared to that of married couples. Without the benefits of marriage, some plaintiffs have had to endure the expensive and time-consuming process of cross-adopting each other’s children and effectuating legal surname changes. Other plaintiffs have had to contend with economic disadvantages, such as paying excessive health insurance premiums because employers did not have to provide coverage to domestic partners, not having a right to “family leave” time, and suffering adverse inheritance tax consequences.

When some plaintiffs have been hospitalized, medical facilities have denied privileges to their partners customarily extended to family members. For example, when Cindy Meneghin contracted meningitis, the hospital’s medical staff at first ignored her pleas to allow her partner Maureen to accompany her to the emergency room. After Marcye Nicholson-McFadden gave birth to a son, a hospital nurse challenged the right of her partner Karen to be present in the newborn nursery to view their child. When Diane Marini received treatment for breast cancer, medical staff withheld information from her partner Marilyn “that would never be withheld from a spouse or even a more distant relative.” Finally, plaintiffs recount the indignities, embarrassment, and anguish that they as well as their children have suffered in attempting to explain their family status.

It has ordered that the state legislature remove all bars to benefits and has left it up to the Legislature as to what it should be called.

It is worth noting that, Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, a Whitman appointee, dissented saying that the court did not go far enough and that gay couples are not only due the rights and benefits of marriage, but are entitled to be married with sanction of the state.

The ruling, a good first step that protects same-sex couples, probably does not go far enough. But then, I’m not sure that we are asking the right questions. Perhaps, we should eliminate the legal definition of marriage altogether and leave that word for the religious institutions, open up our laws not only to heterosexual and gay couples, but to other family arrangements. We are living in a world of extended and unconventional families. Perhaps all the variations need to be recognized.

But that is a subject for another day.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

President George W. Bush should start worrying. Stories like this — about a Marine sergeant and his fellow solidiers going public with opposition to the war — and others about U.S. generals doing the same are evidence that the facade of competence the Bushies have attempted to build is crumbling badly.

Sgt. Liam Madden, in an appearance on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” last night, explained his decision to go public. He said the war was serving no purpose — it was not benefitting the American public, the American soldier or the average Iraqi — and should be brought to a quick end. He said troops should begin coming home within three months — a timeline far shorter than those offered by even the most antiwar politician.

In response to the news earlier this week, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, once again showed the arrogant disregard for the public and the military that has been the hallmark of this administration.

Q Tony, quick — there’s 65 active duty troops that are coming out with a letter today, saying they think the occupation should end, and they’re saying that — this is part of the military whistle blower. Any reaction to that?

MR. SNOW: Well, number one, it’s a Fenton Communications job, which means clearly it’s got a political edge to it. But number two it’s not unusual for soldiers in a time of war to have some misgivings. I believe at least two of them have served in Iraq proper, active duty. We don’t know how many have actually served —

Q I think the majority of them have.

MR. SNOW: But let’s say they all did. You also have more than — you have several hundred thousand who served in Iraq. You have reenlistment rates that have exceeded goals in all the military. You’ve had a number of people serving multiple tours of duty. And it appears that there’s considerable —

Q They don’t have much choice.

MR. SNOW: Well, no, I mean they do have choice. If you’ve got a chance to sign up or not sign up, and you decide that you’re going to sign up again and go serve in Iraq, it means it means something to you. And so I believe that there is also — you get 65 guys who are, unfortunately — no, not unfortunately — 65 people who are going to be able to get more press than the hundreds of thousands who have come back and said they’re proud of their service.

Nice attempt to dismiss the movement, but then we are talking about the ostrich-in-chief and his minions.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I received a call from the state office of the courts today, alerting me that the state Supreme Court is slated to rule tomorrow — Chief Justice Deborah Poritz’s final on the bench — on the long-awaited gay-marriage case.

And a Dayton couple (pictured) will be waiting with baited breath because their future could depend on it.

Here is what they told us earlier this year:

For 42-year-old Sarah and 46-year-old Suyin, marriage is as much about protecting their children as it is a symbol of their love and devotion.

“Your family is really the center of your existence,” Suyin said. “You work, you go to school, you’ve done all the right things. But there’s something else you can’t control.”

And that sums up pretty well what’s at stake for all gay couples in New Jersey.

Here is my column from February on the subject:

The state Supreme Court now has the chance to grant New Jersey’s gay and lesbian couples the rights they deserve.

The court heard arguments Wednesday on a case brought by seven couples — including Suyin and Sarah Lael of Dayton — challenging the state’s prohibition against gay marriage.

The five lesbian and two gay male couples who have brought the suit say the prohibition violates the state’s constitution and results in discrimination against gay and lesbian couples, in particular when it comes to health insurance, family leave and other perks that the married world takes for granted.

“For married couples,” writes Alfred P. Doblin, editorial page editor of the Herald News in Passaic County, “there is no fear that, after the death of a spouse, the
surviving partner would be denied Social Security benefits, pensions, access to health care coverage or saddled with estate taxes. For same-sex couples, there is no continuation of medical benefits, no Social Security, no guarantee of pensions, and, until recently, no assurance that a surviving partner could even have the final say on funeral arrangements.”

It is why the marriage issue has become so important in the gay community. It is a civil rights issue, a question of whether we as a society are willing to grant gay and lesbian couples full participation.

There are about 1,100 federal and state civil rights that go with being married; the legal construct controls issues ranging from inheritance, health insurance and Social Security to child-custody issues and end-of-life decisions.

And all of these — aside from about a dozen granted to gay lesbian couples under the state’s domestic partnership laws — are handed out based not on the notion of a committed relationship, but on what is an arbitrary and outdated religious definition.
“Our society and laws view marriage as something more than just state recognition of a committed relationship between two adults,” the state appellate court wrote last year in upholding the state’s gay marriage ban. “Our leading religions view marriage as a union of men and women recognized by God, and our society considers marriage between a man and woman to play a vital role in propagating the species and in providing the ideal environment for raising children.”

The assumption made by the court was that children are best served when they have two parents, one male and one female, and that other family constructs are inferior by their very nature.

While most would consider the proposition logical, the research is murky and all of us probably know at least one or two families that don’t fit the profile, but have healthy and well-adjusted children.

And there is something hypocritical in all of this, especially when you consider that my wife and I, who have chosen not to have children, are entitled to all the protection the law provides, while Suyin and Sarah Lael, who have adopted three daughters, are not.

The Laels have been together 15 years, own a home together and are raising a family. They’ve obviously made the kind of commitment that Annie and I have.
And yet, the state does not see it that way, and that is the rub.

Too much of the debate has centered on the notion of tradition, on how society and religion have historically viewed marriage. But religion and society have been wrong in the past — slavery, and later Jim Crow laws, standing as one of the most notable examples.

And tradition has a way of changing over time. Implicit in an earlier understanding of marriage, for instance, was the notion that the man was in charge and that a woman’s legal rights derived from her husband.

Our conception of family has changed, as well, in recent years growing to encompass single-parent families, so-called blended families and all manner of extended arrangements. That there is still resistance to granting gay and lesbian couples the same kind of rights the rest of us enjoy is shameful.

“Your family is really the center of your existence,” Suyin Lael told our reporter, Marisa Maldonado, this week. “You work, you go to school, you’ve done all the right things. But there’s something else you can’t control.”

And that is just plain wrong.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

I think you’d have to go back a long, long way to find a South Brunswick municipal election as eventful as the one being waged this year.

I’m not talking about dirty campaigning or charges flying fast and furious, however. Rather, this year’s race has been turned upside down by a disgruntled Democrat.

Debra Johnson, who served on the Township Committe from 1995 to 1998 (with one year as mayor) and as the township’s first elected mayor from 1999 to 2002, attempted to take out incumbent Mayor Frank Gambatese with a primary challenge in June, coming closer than any Republican has to knocking off an incumbent Democrat in 13 years.

And now, as the campaign comes into its final stretch, with the Republicans putting up only token resistance (this is not an implied endorsement, just an observation about their campaign), Ms. Johnson suddenly finds herself in the middle of things again.

A group of her primary supporters is pushing a write-in campaign they hope will end with Ms. Johnson in office and the mayor contemplating retirement. Ms. Johnson says she has been drafted for the run and has not participated in the planning of the campaign. But she says she will serve if elected.

Signs — the ones used during her primary run, but with the words “write-in” affixed — have started cropping up around town and her supporters have placed a full-page ad in our paper.

Her presence in the race has turned it into a free-for-all. Ms. Johnson was a popular mayor and garnered significant support during the primary, especially from a number of voters in the East Villages area. (Many of them have been spoiling for a fight with the mayor since his initial support for a warehouse complex on the Van Dyke farm on Davidsons Mill Road. He has since backed away from the warehouses and has become an advocate for preserving as much of the property as possible.)

The write-in campaign creates several scenarios:

1. Ms. Johnson wins outright

2. Ms. Johnson steals enough votes from Mayor Gambatese to swing the votes to Republican Lynda Woods Cleary (this is based on voting trends from the last four elections)

3. Ms. Johnson’s campaign will have no impact.

I don’t want to prejudge this and I hate horse-race analogies, but money is money and write-ins are rarely successful — especially in an election in which 10,000 to 12,000 people are likely to vote.

But Ms. Johnson has made what has been a quiet race up until this point a bit more interesting than it otherwise would have been.

***

By the way, we will be doing a story on the write-in campaign this week, but we are not including Ms. Johnson in our five-part election issue series because she is not officially on the ballot.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press will not be endorsing for the U.S. House of Representatives (we never do). But I want to pass along the endorsement in the 12th District race from our sister paper, The Princeton Packet, because it pretty much sums up my thinking on the race:

Eight years ago, when Rush Holt was first elected to Congress, he was a wet-behind-the-ears scientist-turned-politician better known for his mastery of physics than of policy, more adept at thinking deep thoughts than at speaking in public, who had the good fortune to run against an incumbent whose 15 minutes of fame consisted of singing “Twinkle, twinkle, Kenneth Starr” on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Holt has come a long way.

Today, he is a knowledgeable, articulate, savvy congressman who has built a reputation not only for constituent service, but for his commitment to progressive causes — election reform, smart growth, sustainable energy, stem-cell research. His leadership in the effort to require all electronic voting machines to produce a verifiable paper trail has garnered national attention. His background in science, and his devotion to the scientific method in researching and analyzing complex public issues, has earned him widespread respect among his colleagues in Washington.

Rep. Holt has also benefited greatly from the redrawing of his 12th Congressional District — which includes the Princetons, West Windsor and Plainsboro — following the 2000 Census; what was once a Republican bastion has morphed into what some observers now consider a fairly safe Democratic seat. This, in part, may explain why his Republican challenger this year is little-known former Helmetta Borough Councilman Joseph Sinagra.

Mr. Sinagra’s campaign is built largely on a platform supporting President George W. Bush — “stay the course” in Iraq, cut taxes, outlaw abortion (except when the health of the mother is in danger), ban embryonic stem-cell research. On two issues — illegal immigration and the minimum wage — he moves well to the right of the president, railing against “amnesty” for undocumented aliens and calling for abolition of minimum-wage laws.

Rep. Holt is the clear choice in this race.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick