“For the Sake of the Children: A New Approach to Securing Same-Sex Marriage Rights?”
For the Sake of the Children: A New Approach to Securing Same-Sex Marriage Rights?
S.J. Barrett, 73 Brook. L. Rev. 695 (2008)
(An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library or alternative source.)
On October 25, 2006, the Supreme Court of New Jersey effectively ruled that any law denying homosexual couples marriage rights granted to heterosexual couples violates the Equal Protection Clause of the New Jersey State Constitution. The court left the legislature with the semantic task of naming such a legal contract either a “marriage” or a “civil union,” but made clear in a unanimous decision that “committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples.” Despite stopping short of mandating the title of “marriage” for homosexual unions, the court in Lewis v. Harris forever altered the landscape of the gay marriage debate by handing down the first ever unanimous decision for the plaintiff in a gay marriage case. While the court’s resounding unanimity was remarkable, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the New Jersey decision was the dicta employed by the court in reaching its landmark decision. Like no other prior case, the New Jersey Supreme Court focused extensively on the burdens faced by the children of homosexual couples denied the right to marry, rather than restricting its analysis to an examination of the rights withheld from the couples themselves.
One Comment
Who are the children of gay marriage???
It takes a heterosexual couple to have children.