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03/23/2010
Deo to NJ: Don't look at the historically ball-moving ruling behind the turnpike!
Complete and utter truth bastardization in 6, 5, 4, 3, 2....
“Activists in the homosexual movement are relentless and have little respect for the people and the democratic process,” said Len Deo, Founder and President of the New Jersey Family Policy Council. “They brought their case before the Courts in 2002 – 2006, and lost. They came to the legislature in January and lost there too. Now they are back in the Courts with their demands. But it’s the people who ought to be making this decision. The activists know that the people want to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman as they have in every state where a vote was held.”
Gay Rights Activists Bring Marriage into Court Again! [NJFPC]
Loss. Right. Except, you know, for that teensy weensy little point about the MAJOR WIN that we scored in the state Supreme Court in 2006. It was called Lewis v. Harris, and it was a unanimous decision finding that state law was at the time unconstitutional in regards to equal protection for same-sex couples. It wasn't just a non-loss: It was the huge victory on which all subsequent forward marriage movement in the Garden State has been based!
Yes, we would've rather had one more of the seven judge come around and say that marriage was the only remedy, but unfortunately they came down 4-3 on allowing the legislature to decide whether they should open up marriage laws to same-sex couples or create a separate civil unions system. The legislature chose the latter. So really, the primary "loss" here involves the people of New Jersey who deserve the rights that they are owed, but who have been stalled because of the always-failing belief that a separate set of rights can ever really be equal. Which is exactly why we are going back to court now: Because the court's promise was EQUAL protection, and civil unions have failed to deliver on that.
But of course none of this matters to NJ's loudest anti-fairness voice (and self-professed NOM thrower) Len Deo. To hear the way he sells it to the public, we gays have done nothing but lose, we are somehow wrong to use the judiciary on matters of constitutional fairness, and we are fundamentally disrespectful by virtue of our "radical" desire to be fair and free, but unfortunately our rights can never be valid until residents from Cape May to Sussex have had a chance to weigh in. It's deception that's clearly born out of fear. But that doesn't make the deliberate deceit or deeply offensive portrait any less enraging.
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