c. 2006 Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ Should New Jersey be the next Massachusetts? Or the next Vermont? State legislators now have 180 days to decide.

The state’s top court on Wednesday (Oct. 25) took the thorny question of whether gay unions should be recognized as marriages and placed it squarely in the hands of state lawmakers. It also injected the issue into the upcoming elections.

Democratic leaders in Trenton, the state capital, said they will follow the court’s order and choose between legalizing gay marriage or creating civil unions with equal rights, benefits and obligations.

But some Republicans, including state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., who is locked in a heated race for the U.S. Senate, called for a constitutional amendment to negate the ruling and define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of nervous legislators,” said Joseph Marbach, chairman of the political science program at Seton Hall University. “This is a polarizing issue. It’s almost like abortion. You are either for it or against it.”

In a move that could energize conservative voters in the Nov. 7 election, Kean came out strongly against the decision. His campaign said he would oppose any effort to confer marriage-like rights on gay couples.

“I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition,” Kean said in a statement.

Kean’s opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, said he would support civil unions akin to marriage and oppose “any constitutional amendment that takes away people’s rights.

“I have always believed that marriage is between a man and a woman, and I have also always supported civil unions that allow couples with a lifetime commitment to each other to get full legal benefits,” he said.

The court ruled that committed gay couples deserve the same rights and benefits as similar heterosexual couples. To give them those rights, the court said, the Legislature must create the proper legal framework.

It can do that, the justices said, either by redefining marriage as the top court in Massachusetts did, or approving civil unions such as those permitted in Vermont. A 2004 domestic partnership law did not go far enough, the court said.

Senate President Richard Codey and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, both Democrats, said they basically agreed with the ruling and will try to meet the mandate _ while grumbling about the “unreasonable” 180-day deadline.

Codey and Roberts both said they oppose _ and will not “post for a vote” _ a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in the Garden State.

Gov. Jon Corzine, also a Democrat, opposed gay marriage as a candidate last year and said his “preference” is for civil unions, but said he would not veto a bill that formally allows gay marriage.

State Sen. Gerald Cardinale, a Republican, has sponsored a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being strictly for a man and a woman. “The objection that I would have is marriage is special, it’s unique. It’s been around a very long time. And we shouldn’t fool with the definition of marriage,” he said.

A Rutgers-Eagleton poll last June found New Jersey voters narrowly supported legalizing gay marriage (49 percent to 44 percent), but were more inclined to support civil unions (66 percent to 29 percent).

National groups that promote gay or civil rights joined in praise of the ruling. By contrast, groups that support the traditional notions of families condemned it, with several saying the New Jersey decision shows the need for a federal constitutional amendment to specifically define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The Rev. Lloyd Pulley, pastor at Calvary Chapel of Old Bridge, N.J., was about to lead a Bible study lesson Wednesday night when he launched into a short speech about the ruling, saying the “imperial justices of the Supreme Court” had just declared thousands of years of history “null and void.”

“I hope Christians … will send a message to the state and vote out the mentality that appointed these justices,” Pulley said.

Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, the top leader among the state’s sizable Catholic population, took a more moderate tone.

In a prepared statement, Myers pledged to lobby legislators against gay marriage, but he refrained from criticizing the court’s decision to broaden the rights of gay couples.

“It is up to the people … to settle such matters,” Myers said. “For the sake of constitutional democracy as well as for the sake of marriage itself, the proper place for such discussion must rest with the elected representatives of the people of this state.”

(Joe Donohue and Jeff Whelan write for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. Staff writers Jeff Diamant, Mark Mueller and Kelly Heyboer contributed to this report.)

KRE/PH END DONOHUE

Editors: To obtain photos related to the gay marriage decision, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

See sidebars, RNS-NJ-QANDA, RNS-NJ-IMPACT and RNS-NJ-REAX, all transmitted Oct. 26.