Does this new law provide lesbian and gay couples and their families equal treatment?

Absolutely not. Although the New Jersey civil union law grants same-sex couples very significant legal protections, it denies them the right to marry and enter into an enormously important legal and cultural institution, one well understood worldwide. By creating a separate institution of "civil union," the New Jersey government says loud and clear that lesbians and gay men are inferior because any committed relationships they might have are unworthy of marriage. In dissenting from the New Jersey Supreme Court's referral of Lambda Legal's case to the New Jersey Legislature, Chief Judge Poritz explained that: "What we name things matters, words matter. . . . By excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage, the state declares that it is legitimate to differentiate between their commitments and the commitments of heterosexual couples. Ultimately, the message is that what same-sex couples have is not as important or as significant as 'real' marriage, that such lesser relationships ...  more