Civil unions are a failed experiment.
I didn't say that. Lynn Fontaine Newsome did.
Newsome is president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, and she was testifying in September about the effectiveness of the civil union law in New Jersey.
Needless to say, she doesn't think they are working well.
Nor does Ed Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, who said, "By creating a separate system of rights . . . the civil union law has failed to fulfill its promise of equality."
And in the end, neither does the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission itself, which concluded last week that the idea of civil unions confuses the public and establishes a "second-class status" for the gays and lesbians who are bound together under them.
Civil unions are a failed experiment. We have tried them, and they have failed.
This is important, because state governments are often considered labs for the federal government. The idea is, try something out on a smaller scale in the various states. If it works, consider it on the federal level. If it doesn't work, try something else.
New Jersey is instructive because of the sheer number of problems the law has had in its year of existence. The State Supreme Court instructed that gays and lesbians must be treated equally, leaving it up to the legislature to determine how.
The legislature, in turn, granted gays and lesbians civil unions instead of marriage.
New Jersey has 2,329 couples in civil unions and 56 who have affirmed unions from other states; the New York Times reports that 568 couples have complained to Garden State Equality that they have not, in fact, been treated equally.
Those complaints have ranged from human resources computer systems having no category for "civil unions" to military members who are afraid to be "unioned" lest they be outing themselves under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to companies directly violating the law because they didn't understand that unions granted the same state rights as marriage.
Happily, not only do we have a few failed civil union experiments (Vermont experts testified as well), but we have one very successful equal marriage experiment: Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts experts who testified said that their state had none of the issues of New Jersey.
Before the provocative results of these experiments, many of us felt that civil unions might be a fine idea. Like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, we thought - just give people their full rights and call it anything you want. Who cares if it's called marriage? A word is just a word. If labeling this packet of rights "civil unions" is what it takes to bring equality to gays and lesbians, then for heaven's sake, call that packet "civil unions."
Unfortunately, the experiment of New Jersey proves that the words matter very much.
Civil unions really are perceived as separate and unequal, both by the people who get "unioned" and by the lawyers, officials and civil servants who need to deal with the tangles civil unions create.
Additionally, though, New Jersey gives us an inefficiency argument that might help sway fiscal (if not social) conservatives. Why force thousands of businesses to change established forms, computer programs and policies to accommodate civil unions, when forms, programs and policies are already in place for marriage?
Wouldn't just calling gays and lesbians "married" be easier for everyone concerned?
In a way, it's great that New Jersey decided on civil unions first, because they took the time to review the policy. Civil unions in New Jersey gave people a chance to see what a world with heterosexual marriage and homosexual civil unions looks like - by watching New Jersey struggle with it, we've gotten a chance to kick the tires and look under the hood, to discover the certainty that this vehicle won't move anyone forward.
Now we have proof. Marriage is more than just a word that will make us "feel" equal - marriage is a word that will actually move us toward equal. Which means we can no longer be contented by presidential candidates who tell us that they will give us all of the rights without the word.
I mean, just imagine the tax payer dollars that would need to be paid to change thousands of federal forms to include "civil unions" when "marriage" is there already and is a word everyone already understands.
Civil unions are a failed experiment. There is no need to try it on a national level - it has already been tried and failed. We need federal marriage.
7 Comments for “Civil Unions: A Bust in New Jersey”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
I certainly will not be satisfied by anything short of full equality, which means marriage. But Jennifer’s discussion does not speak to whether civil unions are better than no protections at all; it only makes clear that civil unions fail when measured against the standard of equality.
Fine. I agree. But what if we have the votes at the federal level for civil unions a decade or more before we have the votes for marriage? Do we say it’s all or nothing, so we’d prefer no protections than partial protections? I know that some people oppose incrementalism because they think we will be stuck forever with halfway measures; but that is belied by the fact that so many activists and experts are persisting in their demand for equality in New Jersey. Unless we all drop dead, the fight for equality is bound to go on.
On the other hand, I will have to forward Jennifer’s article to Nancy Polikoff, a Beyond Marriage signatory who has a book out (and an op-ed in the 2/24 issue of The Washington Post) calling for us to leave “marriage” to religion. That is something I will never accept, because marriage is not the sole property of religious organizations and I see no reason to concede it to them.
Some things just stick in the craw and won’t be dismissed. Like “all men are created equal.” Living up to it is a long struggle. If we cannot get there from here in a single bound, I’m still jumping.
posted by Tavdy on
It is strange how the experience in the EU has been so very different from that of the US. Civil Unions have been far more successful here, and have led directly to gender-blind marriage in two states (NL & BE) and several others (NO, IS, UK, DK, SE) are likely to follow suit, which has persuaded a third (ES) to bypass Civil Unions altogether. In those states that are likely to retain them (CH, FR) they have developed their own particular terminology – Pacser instead of husband/wife, for example.
Perhaps this difference should be looked at – what is it about Western Europe’s culture that has made the fight for gender-blind marriage so much easier, and Civil Unions so much more successful, than in the USA?
posted by ModerateGay on
This article is a bunch of whining. Long on generalizations. Desperately short on specifics.
The first specific I could find was, “computer systems having no category for civil unions”. Big. Freaking. Deal. What do you expect, for something as new to the rest of the humanity as legal gay unions? Suck it up, pioneers. Ditto for “companies not understanding unions”. The world really doesn’t revolve around us, people. Deal with it. There are much worse fates to have. Fight for equality, but show some maturity along the way.
Next up, “military members who are afraid to be “unioned” lest they be outing themselves under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Well, we knew that already. It’s a DADT problem. It would be no different if NJ had called it marriage. Given that military code explicitly forbids (military) recognition of gay marriage, regardless.
What other specific inequalities has the article got? Not much.
Predicted response to these comments: More whine, whine, whine.
posted by Brian Miller on
It is strange how the experience in the EU has been so very different from that of the US. Civil Unions have been far more successful here
That’s mostly because most of the citizens of the EU are used to being stratified by government-enforced class and other categories. “Equal rights” are not part and parcel of EU culture, for the most part — they’re subsumed to the needs of the state.
Hence, the mass acceptance of segregation in the law based on sexual orientation, laws banning controversial speech, etc.
Here in the USA, we have a tradition of equality under the law, and a Constitution that demands it. So the lack of satisfaction and lack of uptake isn’t surprising.
Europeans are willing to take “what they can get,” whereas Americans are acclimated to equal treatment under the law and won’t accept anything less.
Big. Freaking. Deal. What do you expect, for something as new to the rest of the humanity as legal gay unions?
The British reported a similar system. It’s a laughable contention, however, to claim that same-sex relationships are just so radically different that computers cannot accept them.
The reality is that the computers didn’t work because civil unions are a separate-and-unequal legal status. Equal marriage wouldn’t confuse computers or cause other problems — another reason why it’s the right approach.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I think that ModerateGay’s objections were basically correct — namely that the problems reported are problems that would’ve likely come up anyway, even if New Jersey had gone with “marriage” instead of “civil unions.” (For example, some of the statutes, government forms, and computer databases that referred to “marriage” might’ve also taken for granted that spouses are going to be of the opposite sex — so updates to these statutes, forms, and DBs would still be necessary no matter what term was used to describe same-sex partnerships.)
Also, the “separate is not equal” complaint originated in the days of racially segregated public schools. But the reason that separate was not equal in that context is that white schools and black schools were competing for their respective shares of a finite resource, namely funding. Exactly what is it we’d not be getting our fair share of if our same-sex partnerships were called “civil unions” rather than “marriage”?
posted by Karen on
Any organization that chooses not to treat civil unions the same way marriages are treated wouldn’t have to. That’s what wouldn’t be equal. Your question should be, if a civil union really is supposed to be equal in every way to a marriage, why the two seperate names? Clearly, the only reason to call them differently is to treat them differently. Ergo, seperate = not equal.
posted by Richard on
Civil unions are certainly better then nothing, which remains the reality for many gay couples.
Most Americans are simply not ready to treat sexual orientation as a non-issue, legally. What some fringe third party may feel about it, does not really matter too much.
Push for equality, but learn to celebrate your victories.