What the NJ gay marriage ruling means to PA

Yesterday the New Jersey Supreme Court said that gay couples are entitled to civil unions under the state's equal protections guarantees. But the court also said that same-sex couples do not have the right to marry. In its ruling that whether that status would be called civil unions, marriage, or whatever, “is a matter left to the democratic process.” That means that it's now up to the New Jersey state legislature to enact civil unions or it could pass a bill allowing same-sex couples to wed.

But that doesn't mean much to those living in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania like I do, where we have to deal with the 1996 Pennsylvania Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which says that same-sex couples can't marry in in this state. That legislation also states that Pennsylvania won't recognize same-sex marriages from other states. In other words, a lot of gay couples's lives are still being negatively affected just so a few smug Christain supremacist hets can go around feeling entitled.

Also the news can also have an affect on the US senatorial and governor's election campaigns here in Pennsylvania. There could last-minute political ads that slam gay people like the "homosexual agenda" ads that are currently running in Indiana.

Elsewhere eight states have a referendum on some sort of constitutional ban on gay marriage in the upcoming elections. Arizona looks like it might be the first state to defeat such a constitutional ban; a recent Arizona poll stated that 56% of Arizona voters oppose the constitutional ban on domestic partnerships. (Of course people can lie in polls not to appear mean; in the end the only poll that really counts is on November 7.)