New Jersey Gays Want Marriage


Hundreds turn out for Maplewood town meeting marking anniversary of domestic partnership law

Volume 75, Number 8 | June 13- 20, 2005

New Jersey Gays Want Marriage

Hundreds turn out for Maplewood town meeting marking anniversary of domestic partnership law


Photo: Seth J. Bookey/Gay City News
Maplewood domestic partners Stacy Brodsky (l) and Felice Londa were among those who turned out Saturday
to demand marriage rights in New Jersey. (GAY CITY NEWS)

By SETH J. BOOKEY

“Domestic partnership is nice, but we really want to get married,” was the general message coming out of a town meeting in Maplewood, New Jersey, on July 10, organized by Garden State Equality.

The event marked the first anniversary of the state’s implementation of a domestic partnership registry that grants gay and lesbian couples limited, but important rights.

The town meeting, which packed more than 470 attendees into St. George’s Episcopal Church, also gave Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender political organization, a chance to spotlight its most significant goals—legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, demonstrating the shortcomings of the existing domestic partnership law and adding anti-discrimination protections for the transgender community.

Garden State Equality also debuted a film, “New Jersey: A State that Doesn’t Hate,” that, despite its title, presented case studies illustrating persistent discrimination problems—including a lesbian politician slandered by an anonymous letter falsely accusing her of being a pedophile, a gay teacher in Lower Township in a committed relationship denied partner benefits because the state law only mandates benefits for state-level public employees and a transgendered woman who has suffered hundreds of humiliations during a fruitless job search.

One highlight of the gathering was the keynote address delivered by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a gay Massachusetts Democrat.

Frank discussed the current state of gay marriage in Massachusetts, and right-wing efforts to undo it, emphasizing that making an effective case for same-sex marriage is often a matter of refuting “the preposterous case against it.” He also discussed the ways in which other civil rights advances were resisted based on predictions of “social instability” later consistently proven to be unfounded. Frank told the audience that the problem is not the bigots—“these are people who don’t even want us touching each other”—but those who are opposed to same-sex marriage because they have “heard” it would be socially chaotic. He said that if the public is able to hear real stories in town meetings and other comfortable settings and learn that any advance for gay or lesbians has no impact on their own marriages and families, there is an opportunity for the gay community to change minds.

Frank—described himself as a believer in “incrementalism—get what you can and move forward”—said that same-sex marriage will be most readily acceptable where when domestic partnerships or civil unions are already in place, just as winning transgender protections is made easier by first have gay rights laws on the books.

New Jersey passed an anti-discrimination bill protecting gays and lesbians in 1990.

Frank exhorted the crowd to vote in every primary, noting that “in my business, the only number we really care about is how many people come to the voting booth.”

The town meeting opened with a procession of couples who are registered as domestic partners and are now seeking marriage. As Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality’s executive director, noted, domestic partnership covers less than a dozen of the 1,049 rights and responsibilities that the federal Government Accounting Office has found are guaranteed by marriage. Goldstein told the crowd that a state marriage case that lost in two lower courts is now poised to be heard by the highest court in New Jersey, which is “where we want to be.”

One of the couples who participated was Ulysses Dietz, a curator for a museum in Newark and a deacon at St. George, and his partner Gary Berger, who were accompanied by their children Alex and Grace.

“It’s about time we got married,” Dietz told the crowd.

“Emotionally, it’s meant something,” Dietz later Gay City News about the couple’s registration as partners with the state. “It’s the only publicly legal document that says we’re a couple.”

Otherwise, domestic partnership has not brought many changes for the couple, who Deitz said want “all the legal ramifications of marriage” for themselves and their children.

“All of our kids’ friends have parents who are married—or at least were married,” he explained.

Dietz specifically pointed out that while the New Jersey legislation protects a surviving partner from state inheritance taxes, there is no protection from federal taxes on that income.

Felice Londa and Stacey Brodsky, who have been together six and a half years and became domestic partners as soon as it was possible to do so, were also on hand to voice their demand for marriage. Londa, who was involved in last year’s festival marking the first day of domestic partnership registration, noted that Maplewood was the first municipality to open up its domestic partnership registry last year—on July 10, a Saturday, when City Hall would normally be closed. More than 700 couples registered across New Jersey in the first days of eligibility last year, 200 of them in Maplewood alone.

According to the Newark Star-Ledger, more than 3,200 gay and lesbian couples are now registered across the state.

Saturday’s gathering was also an opportunity to honor legislative allies from Trenton with induction into the Equality Hall of Fame. Among the honorees were New Jersey Acting Gov. Richard Codey, Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who authored the domestic partnership legislation, Assemblyman Joe Roberts (D-Camden), the majority leader, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), author of the bill pending in the Legislature to add protections based on gender identity and expression to the state’s anti-discrimination bill, and Sen. John H. Adler (D-Camden), who heads the state Senate judiciary committee. Also honored were Sen. William L. Gormley (R-Atlantic), Assemblymen Robert J. Martin (R-Morris Plains) Jerry Green (D-Union) and John F. McKeon (D-Essex), and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer).

The July 10 town meeting is the latest in a series of meetings organized by Garden State Equality since 2003 aimed at educating the public about gay marriage. More than 6,700 people have turned out for these meetings, the next of which will be held September 15 at 7 p.m. at Montclair State University. For more information, visit gardenstateequality.org.

Posted: Thu - July 14, 2005 at 10:18 PM        


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