NJ bill will not call gay unions marriage

New Jersey bill will not call gay unions marriage
Thu Dec 7, 2006 3:38 PM ET
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A panel of New Jersey lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that would create civil unions giving equal rights to gay and lesbian couple, shunning a push to call those partnerships "marriage."
The State Assembly's judiciary committee voted 4-2 for the bill, which would provide those unions with the legal rights of married couples.
The measure follows an October 25 state Supreme Court ruling that ordered the legislature to give gay couples the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples, but left it to lawmakers to decide whether to call it "marriage."
Massachusetts became the first and only state to legalize gay marriage in 2004. Several other states have civil union or domestic partnership laws.
The New Jersey panel heard sometimes emotional testimony from campaigners on both sides in a four hourlong hearing.
Steve McIntyre said he has been with his partner for 20 years, and they want to be legally married.
"He's not my roommate, he's not my partner, he's my husband," McIntyre told the panel.
The bill was expected to be approved in both houses of the legislature by the end of the year,
A poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut, showed on Thursday that 60 percent of New Jersey voters supported a law allowing civil unions, but half were opposed to gay marriage.
Karen Nicholson-McFadden, who is among seven same-sex couples who brought the Supreme Court case against the state, urged lawmakers to vote against the civil unions bill because she said it would continue discrimination against gay and lesbian couples by preventing them from marrying.
"The government thinks it's OK to treat us differently because we are gay," she said. "I will never be allowed to marry the only person I would ever want to marry if you pass this bill."
Among witnesses opposing gay marriage, the Rev. Peter West presented a letter from seven Catholic bishops urging lawmakers to affirm that marriage is "between one man and one woman."
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Oatis in New York)