RNS—Battle lines drawn on N.J. same sex marriage debate

Posted by Kendall Harmon

With same-sex marriage legislation defeated in the state Senate, Gov. Chris Christie on record opposing it, and a proposal to put the question to voters going nowhere fast, hundreds of supporters and opponents of gay marriage squared off Tuesday (July 20) to prepare for the next expected front in the battle: the state Supreme Court.

What originally was supposed to be a small rally by the National Organization for Marriage turned into competing protests after Garden State Equality, the state's largest gay rights organization, brought in a larger crowd to counter it.

National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown said his group stopped in New Jersey as part of its 19-state bus tour because he was afraid the state would legalize gay marriage by judicial fiat.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government

4 Comments
Posted July 23, 2010 at 4:00 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. dwstroudmd wrote:

There is no other way to legalize itn than judicial fiat.  The referenda in every state brave enough to conduct one has so demonstrated.

July 23, 9:52 pm | [comment link]
2. Cennydd wrote:

The judges need to be repeatedly reminded that they don’t make the laws; their job is to interpret them.

July 23, 10:22 pm | [comment link]
3. azusa wrote:

It’s clear that a new people needs to be elected.

July 24, 4:41 am | [comment link]
4. Larry Morse wrote:

The judicial fiat is the great bugaboo. How is it to be avoided? I do not see the answer. If the constitution, once having been applied to an issue, has the power to overrule legislatures, whether federal or state, then the Supremes in fact have the power to create new law by demanding that the legislatures bring themselves into compliance with the constitution. How can it be otherwise? And yet, surely the Supremes ought NOT to have the power to force legislatures because then the separation of powers becomes a meaningless expression -among other things. How is this quandary to be resolved?
    Absent a resolution, the homophile forces can gain a lasting victory, given the liberal-ness of the usual Supremes, and the people and the legislatures will be helpless to do anything about it. Can a legislature overrule the Supremes? Given the present dilemma, how can it be otherwise? And yet, this road is full of danger. 
    This issue has been left too long unresolved for its potential for serious social trouble is enormous.
  Is the answer the power to remove Supremes?  Who seriously wishes to follow this route? Is a fourth branch necessary, an arbiter to rule on all such issues? Or should the power remain in the hands of the people - who, if left to the choices -= might have kept Jim Crow in place. Or are such dilemmas inescapably part of the people’s power, to be resolved by some other means than judicial ones? 
  For me, this is one of the great contradictions of the 21st century , a defining dilemma for which there is no RIGHT answer, only the one we choose to take.  Larry

July 24, 7:23 am | [comment link]
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