GAY MARRIAGE STRUGGLE MARCHS ON

Chapel Hill NC Votes For Gay Marriage Rights...
According to Qnotes Online, less than a week after the town council of Carrboro voted to support marriage equality for same-sex couples, the Chapel Hill Town Council unanimously approved a similar resolution.

Tom Greene, a teacher at Chapel Hill High School who moved to North Carolina with his partner, submitted the resolution to the Town Council. Openly gay Councilman Mark Kleinschmidt urged the council to immediately endorse it instead of waiting for advice from counsel. They did.

The vote affirms the town’s long-standing vision for acceptance and equality. In part, the resolution asked the city to “endorse and support the rights of same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities and commitments of civil marriage.”

The resolutions from Chapel Hill and Carrboro will be forwarded to state and federal legislators.

Chapel Hill, which is located near Durham and the state capital of Raleigh, is home to the University of North Carolina.



New Jersey Commission Backs Gay Marriage Rights...
The New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission unanimously recommended that state legislators allow gays and lesbians to marry.

The commission, mandated to evaluate the state's two-year-old civil unions law, determined that full marriage recognition was superior.

"This commission finds that the separate categorization established by the Civil Union Act invites and encourages unequal treatment of same-sex couples and their children."

AP reported that the commission was made up of LGBT leaders, government officials, a Republican and two clergy members. The commission found that in addition to being unequal, the rights afforded same-sex couples under civil unions aren't always well understood. Citing just one example, the commission documented cases in which people in civil unions had been prevented from visiting their partners in the hospital.

According to an article in The Advocate, Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality and the vice chairman of the commission, told the New Jersey Star-Ledger, "The report is a sweeping indictment of the failure of the civil union law and asks Governor Corzine and the legislature: Do you want equality or not? If so, there is only one way to go."

Governor Corzine said that he wouldn't comment until he had reviewed the report. However, the Governor has said in the past that he would sign a bill allowing gay marriage.

If this happens, New Jersey could become the first state to legalize same-sex marriage by passing a law on their own rather than by a forced court ruling.