This is why A3G was right -- State Court Judges ARE icky.

Not even the 9th Circuit is Reintardted enough to rely on reasoning this shoddy.

9:04 PM: Have you already read the 90+ pages of opinions, which came down just an hour ago? If so, you're a fast reader.

Judges pretending to be legislators; maybe, hopefully, this is just a Halloween gag!

I'm a very fast reader -- about 100 pages/hr, single-spaced. Additionally, not needing to read the citation sentences and the typeface (and the nearly 10 pages of syllabus, headings, and summary) means that it's more like 20 single-spaced pages at a normal font.

9:22 PM: Which is worse, the NJ ruling or the Massachusetts ruling?

I'd have to say this; Mass has an equal protection clause, IIRC, so the arguments for equal protection are at least supported SOMEWHERE in SOME text outside of the legal periodicals.

Conservatives: Isn't this your beloved "federalism" at work? Let NJ and MA do what they want, let other states do what they want, and see what happens? States as policy laboratories, etc.?

Policy, however, is a matter for legislatures.

Federalism isn't the only policy at issue. If it were a policy issue, the legislature would (as it should) institute it. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any problem with the laboratories of democracy (the quote does not refer to laboratories of policy).

The issue is that the judiciary is creating this out of nothing, "supported" by a state constitution lacking an equal protection clause. Rather than laboratories of democracy, it's laboratories of judicial fiat. Barring a state or US consitutional amendment, democracy can't overturn this.

And it should hardly need be said that what the states of NJ and MA "want" is perhaps not best expressed by a judicial decision.

Considering that the New Jersey ruling doesn't require "marriage," but only civil unions, it probably isn't that far off from what NJ voters would support. I don't think there will be a big outcry against this or any attempt to amend the state constitution (as in Massachusetts).

9:59, it requires ALL the rights of marriages, but not the name. It may go incrementally further than the MA opinion, but it's much less well supported.

I'm glad they're giving the option of calling it civil unions--it highlights the hypocrisy of what is (legally anyway) a semantic question. Many more people support giving gay people the same rights as straight people when those rights are called something other than marriage. They don't dispute that gay people should have rights, but god forbid, don't call it marriage!

Now, when given the option to give the rights to the gays and call it something else, people will have to declare that it isn't the fact that gays want marriage that's upsetting, it's the fact that gays want social rights, which is a position that's much harder to defend.

It's not going to be called marriage, so why do you still have a problem with it?

And if you would be in favor of SOME relationship recognition, which rights would you cut back on in order to make the arrangement substantially different from marriage? Would you cut one right? Five rights? And aren't your distinctions arbitrary?

And if you aren't in favor of any relationship recognition at all, aren't you just out of touch with the fact that gay people do have monogamous relationships, and do raise children, and deserve protections for themselves and families?

ATL: "The state legislature has 180 days to enact the legislation providing for same-sex unions"

I have not read the opinion, but what if the legislature does not enact the law? will the NJSC hold it in contempt? Will the leaders of the general assembly be hauled off to jail?

Eric: Right on. The "civil union" option holds people's feet to the fire. It forces them to articulate what's really so bad about giving gays the same rights as straights (without all the symbolic / semantic b.s. over "marriage").

Answer: It's not so bad at all. The world will go on. Massachusetts has gay marriage, and last time I checked, it's still in existence (and doing just fine as a state).

But what about all those Red State guys found having sex with animals recently!?!? Maybe it's the slippery poke,, they had foresight that the NJ court would ultimately rule this way!!!

I guess those Red State prayers are working.

Why isn't anybody asking the fundamental question of what business the state has doling out special rights to anyone based on what's essentially a religious issue? Gay or straight, "government recognized relationships" is a bogus concept. There's nothing about the matter of "who has responsibility for the children" that can't be handled by contract law.

Unlike many of you, when I say "get the government out of my bedroom", I really mean it.

If any of you who appeal to "Natural Law" in the constitutional realm care to refute de Sade's radical Natural Law-based argument against marriage in "La Philosophie dans le boudoir", I'm all ears. heh.