Subscribe"For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponent's record in this area. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent [Senator Ted Kennedy] cannot do this. I can and will.... I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party, and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts"Fuck you, you opportunist!
Failure rate of NJ civil unions grows
As of today, five months after New Jersey’s Civil Union Law took effect, at least 1 in every 7 civil-unioned couples in New Jersey is being denied equal protection under the law.
In today’s meeting of the New Jersey Civil Unions Review Commission, the state registrar reported that 1,359 couples have gotten civil-unioned in New Jersey since the law took affect on February 19, 2007.
During the same five-month period, 191 civil-unioned couples have reported to Garden State Equality that their employers refuse to recognize their civil unions. That is a 14 percent, or 1 in 7, failure rate, at least.
During the first four months of the law, the failure rate had been at least 1 in 8, demonstrating that employers have not increased their acceptance of the law as they’ve become more familiar with it. Employers are actually becoming more resistant.
“What society would tolerate a law’s failing 1 in 7 times?” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality. “If New Jersey’s Civil Unions Law were a person, it would be arrested for committing fraud.”
In fact, the law’s failure rate is likely way higher than 1 in 7 because the 191 couples encompass only those who have come to Garden State Equality. The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights reports it is hearing from 90 couples a month inquiring about problems with civil union implementation — which would be potentially 450 couples.
The Star-Ledger recently ran a front-page story, picked up by news organizations across the country, on how one company, United Parcel Service, refuses to provide equal benefits to civil-unioned employees in New Jersey even though UPS provides equal benefits to its employees in Massachusetts who are married to same-sex spouses there.
Today’s new numbers demonstrate that the failure of New Jersey’s civil unions law goes way beyond UPS. The 191 cases that have come to Garden State Equality involve almost 191 companies.
Many of these companies point to a provision in Federal law that allows them to ignore the laws of various states that recognize same-sex relationships. This begs the question: If Federal law is the problem, what difference would it make to call same-sex relationships “marriage” rather than “civil union”?
A big difference. The Washington Post recently did an investigation in which it reported that companies in Massachusetts are hardly ever using federal law as an excuse to deny equal benefits to same-sex couples married in that state. Even with the problem of federal law, same-sex couples married in Massachusetts, as that state’s law allows are getting equality. Civil-unioned couples in New Jersey are not.
“Month after month, as new statistics of the Civil Unions Law’s failure are released, there’s tragically no improvement in acceptance of the law,” said Goldstein. “Civil unions just don’t work in the real world. Marriage is the only currency of commitment the real world consistently accepts. And the only way to New Jersey will ever see equality is to give same-sex and opposite sex couples the same freedom to marry.”
Later, campaigning in South Carolina, Romney said he would renew his calls to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. "That's essential to our future," he said.And so it begins...
While Romney is willing to generally leave it to states to decide how to set up health care coverage plans, he said it shouldn't be left to states to decide same-sex marriage issues.
"It's a status that lasts a lifetime. And so, if somebody is married in one state and they move to another state, that status travels with them. And so, if you have gay marriage in one state, whether you want it or not, you have gay marriage in all states," Romney told reporters after speaking at a Greenville, S.C., restaurant.
Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University, said the ruling could fire up social conservatives.
"It will probably stir up the social conservatives in the state and make the climate better in Iowa for the most socially conservative of the presidential candidates," she said. "That would be most of them, except (Rudy) Giuliani, I guess."
She said Romney can use the issue to dispel any lingering doubts about his commitment to social conservative causes.
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posted by delmoi at 12:11 AM on August 31, 2007