New Jersey's opportunity

AS NEW JERSEY legislators take up the task handed to them by their state's highest court of legalizing civil unions or marriages for gay couples, they might look at the experience of this state, so far the only one to approve gay marriage. A barometer of how little effect 29 months of gay marriage here have had on straight marriages, religion, and society in general is that the issue has played virtually no role in this year's gubernatorial campaign.

This is the case even though there may be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on the 2008 ballot, and even though the main candidates disagree on the issue: Republican Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey favors civil unions and Democrat Deval Patrick supports gay marriage.

This is not to say that the 2003 decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court extending the right of marriage to same-sex couples has been without controversy. The campaign to ban it is evidence of how deeply felt much opposition to the ruling has been. On Nov. 9, the Legislature is scheduled to meet in constitutional convention. If the proposed amendment receives at least 25 percent approval from this constitutional convention and the next, the ban will be on the 2008 ballot.

Still, none of the four candidates for governor has brought the issue to the forefront in a campaign that has seen spirited differences of opinion on taxes, immigration, the Cape Wind project, and many other issues. One reason is that any opposition to gay marriage would likely be based simply on a candidate's belief that it breaks with the traditional model and not on any evidence that it has had a harmful effect on gay spouses, the children that many of them are raising, or anyone else. There is no such evidence.

There was enough attachment to the traditional model of marriage on the New Jersey court that it decided on a 4-3 vote to follow the example of the Vermont Supreme Court and turn over to the state's legislature the decision of how to define the state-sanctioned unions that the court said gays deserve. It is a sign of how far society has come in accepting the basic notion of gay couples' right to legal status that the three judges in the minority who wanted to go beyond civil unions and legalize gay marriage from the bench were all appointed by Republican governors.

One final note to New Jersey legislators as they weigh whether to legalize civil unions or gay marriage: Although Massachusetts legislators have had occasion to vote on the issue, not one has been turned out of office for favoring gay marriage. So at least in this state you can add elected politicians to the long roster of those who have suffered no harm because the SJC decided gays had the same right to marriage as heterosexuals.