The New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has joined a lawsuit filed by gay rights groups claiming the state government hasn't complied with the 2006 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that granting lesser rights to gay couples in civil unions was unconstitutional. The ACLU has issued an amicus brief on the subject, arguing that "When courts discover that their original remedial schemes for achieving equality through parallel structures have not achieved the intended results, they have ordered that the system of separate rights or privileges be discarded." They also argue that exclusion from rights is not a justifiable public interest.
Legal Director Ed Barocas believes the inequality affects how couples are treated in hospitals and how children of those families are treated in school, saying, "Civil unions institute inequality in ways both mundane and profound. Our state must end the daily struggle it imposes on our fellow citizens by having denied them the right to marry." New Jersey failed to pass legislation to legalize gay marriage earlier this year, even after the state's Civil Union Review Commission found that civil unions didn't provide couples with the equality the state Supreme Court said they should have.
