The legal issues that affect same-sex couples are continuing to evolve. In June, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn key elements of the Defense of Marriage Act, legal disputes erupted in many states.

DOMA barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages that were performed in states that permitted them. Although the Supreme Court ruling means that the federal government will now recognize lawful same-sex marriages, the ruling has spurred numerous challenges to state laws regarding same-sex marriage. This is true here in New Jersey, where same-sex couples have had the right to join in civil unions since 2006, but they do not have the right to marry.

New Jersey’s civil union law offers committed same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage, but not all. In 2011, several couples filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that reserving the benefits of marriage for heterosexual couples conflicts with a top state court ruling–which established that same-sex couples are entitled to the exact same rights as heterosexual couples.

That lawsuit has been working its way through the state legal system, but when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned much of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the New Jersey couples filed a motion to ask Mercer County Chancery Judge Mary Jacobsen to immediately allow gay marriage in New Jersey.

The couples argue that because the federal government will now provide recognition–and thus, benefits–to married same-sex couples, same-sex couples in New Jersey will be denied equal protection of the laws, including federal benefits recognition, because of the limits of civil union.

The State of New Jersey (Governor Christie’s administration) has asked Judge Jacobsen not to decide this issue so quickly, claiming, disingenuously, that the complexities of the Supreme Court ruling will take some time to study, and that the federal government is “at fault” for not recognizing civil unions as deserving of full federal benefits.

The future of the civil union law in New Jersey is now in some doubt. Challenges to bans on permitting or recognizing same-sex marriages have been filed in at least six states in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling.  Lawyers and affected parties anxiously await the outcome.

Source: Associated Press, “NJ expected to file defense of state’s civil unions for same-sex couples vs. gay marriage,” Aug. 2, 2013