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<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> The Supreme Court of New Jersey has ruled in favor of gay marriage, sort of. By a vote of 4 to 3, the court says the state must afford gay couples all the ?rights and benefits? that straight couples have under the law. But the majority punted on the question of what to call gay marriages. If it doesn?t want to call them marriages, the legislature is free to come up with a term of its choosing for committed gay relationships.
In other words, the court is fine with a nomenclature under which some marriages would be separate?but equal. In a sentence that will seem silly?and unjust?in 20 years, the court says this explicitly: ?We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples.? The Plessy court couldn?t have said it better: separate railway cars for blacks are fine, as long as they are just as nice as the ones for whites. Don?t bother about that curtain between the black and white cars. ?Marriages,? ?civil unions,? ?two guys shacking up with a lot of All-Clad cookware??does the term really matter? </div>
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In other words, the court is fine with a nomenclature under which some marriages would be separate?but equal. In a sentence that will seem silly?and unjust?in 20 years, the court says this explicitly: ?We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples.? The Plessy court couldn?t have said it better: separate railway cars for blacks are fine, as long as they are just as nice as the ones for whites. Don?t bother about that curtain between the black and white cars. ?Marriages,? ?civil unions,? ?two guys shacking up with a lot of All-Clad cookware??does the term really matter? </div>
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