TRENTON, N.J.—The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court today affirmed 2 to 1 a trial court decision that said limiting marriage to members of the opposite sex does not violate the New Jersey Constitution.
“The court hit the ball out of the ballpark,” said Alliance Defense Fund attorney Dale Schowengerdt, who authored a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Family Research Council for the appellate division. “The court acknowledged what is undeniable—that marriage between members of the same sex has no foundation in our history or tradition. Same-sex couples do not have a right to marriage under the New Jersey Constitution.”
In the opinion handed down today in
Lewis v. Harris, the appeals court upheld the trial court’s ruling that seven same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses failed to prove their claim that the denials violated their rights of privacy and equal protection under the New Jersey Constitution.
The court wrote, “The same form of constitutional attack that plaintiffs mount against statutes limiting the institution of marriage to members of the opposite sex also could be made against statutes prohibiting polygamy….” The judges were critical of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts’ definition of marriage in the case
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, calling it “a normative judgment that conflicts with the traditional and still prevailing religious and societal view of marriage as a union between a man and a woman….”
The court also affirmed the proper role of the judiciary, stating, “The personal views of the members of the court concerning ‘the wisdom or policy of a statute’ should play no part in determining its constitutionality…. A constitution is not simply an empty receptacle into which judges may pour their own conceptions of evolving social mores.”
In a concurring opinion, Judge Anthony Parrillo wrote, “Indeed, there are reasons for limiting unfettered access to marriage. Otherwise, by allowing the multiplicity of human choices that bear no resemblance to marriage to qualify, the institution would become non-recognizable and unable to perform its vital function.”
In addition to authoring an amicus brief, ADF also funded five additional amicus briefs which Schowengerdt said played a crucial role in the case. “The court noted that these briefs covered important arguments that the New Jersey Attorney General had neglected,” he said.
Read the full text of the court’s opinion at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/LvHopinion.pdf. Read Schowengerdt’s amicus brief in the case at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/LvHamicus.pdf.
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