More on Lewis v. Harris (The NJ Same-Sex Marriage Case)

Yesterday, I reported on the landmark New Jersey case of Lewis v. Harris.

Below is some addition information about the decision and its ramifications from David W. Chen, New Jersey Court Backs Full Rights for Gay Couples, NY Times, Oct. 26, 2006:

All seven justices agreed that the state’s Constitution demands full legal rights for same-sex partners. But its ruling, 4 to 3, revealed a split in how to proceed. The majority said that lawmakers, not the court, should decide whether to call those arrangements a marriage, a civil union or something else. The three dissenters went further, asserting that gay couples, like their heterosexual counterparts, must be allowed to wed.

The New Jersey court did not go as far as Massachusetts, which in 2003 became the first state to permit gay marriage. Instead, it could be considered the new Vermont, which created civil unions for gay couples in 2000, in the politically, legally and culturally charged world of same-sex marriage. * * *

Within minutes of the court’s 3 p.m. announcement, three Democratic Assemblymen, working with Garden State Equality, a gay rights organization, said they would introduce a bill demanding marriage.

But reaction from their fellow legislators was guarded, with some saying privately that civil unions, not marriage, would be the likely result. In a joint statement, the Assembly speaker, Joseph J. Roberts Jr., and the Senate president, Richard J. Codey, both Democrats, called the 180-day deadline “unreasonable” and said, “The only remaining issues now confronting the Legislature are ones of terminology and clarification.”