N.J. court grants rights to gay couples

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

New Jersey's highest court ruled today that gay couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals, but that lawmakers must determine whether the state will honor gay marriage or some other form of civil union.

Advocates on both sides of the issue believed New Jersey posed the best chance to become only the second state after the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to legalize gay marriage because its high court has a history of extending civil rights protections.

Instead, the Supreme Court stopped short of fully approving gay marriage and gave lawmakers 180 days to rewrite marriage laws to either include gay couples or create new civil unions.

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Okay, this isn’t quite the same thing as Massachusetts, where gay marriage was straight up deemed to be a civil right, but it’s pretty darned close, so I’m considering this yet another miraculous step in the right direction. Each state that legalizes gay marriage slightly alters the overall fabric of legal precedent in this area, which means that a few more states, at least, are bound to follow suit within the next few years, which will, in turn, pressure the rest of the country. Ultimately, a gay married couple is going to sue for legal recognition of their union in one of the more homophobic states, like Texas or Louisiana. That’ll almost certainly make it to the US Supreme Court: the Constitution clearly states that contracts made in one state are legally binding in all fifty states. Furthermore, there is already strong precedent coming out of the Lawrence and Garner v Texas case that homosexuals are guaranteed equal protection under the law, which, of course, must necessarily include the right to marry.

This is a ticking time bomb. We will see gay marriage in all fifty states within my lifetime, and it doesn’t matter one bit what all the homophobes think or feel. Heh. I love it.

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