TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Same-sex partners in New Jersey have been granted unprecedented legal, health care and financial rights under a new bill, although the measure stops short of authorizing homosexual “marriage.”
Gov. James E. McGreevey signed the state’s Domestic Partnership Act on Monday, making New Jersey the fifth state to recognize same-sex partnerships and extend certain benefits to homosexual couples.
Under the measure, domestic partners will gain access to medical benefits, insurance and other legal rights. New Jersey also will recognize such partnerships granted in other states.
“This legislation is a matter of fundamental decency,” Mr. McGreevey said.
The bill does not authorize homosexual “marriage,” which is against the law in New Jersey. Mr. McGreevey said he will not back legislation that would amend the state’s marriage laws to include same-sex partners.
However elated they were by the new law, homosexual-rights advocates said it was not enough.
“We are pursuing all roads to justice,” said Laura Popel, president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition, adding that the group will continue to push for same-sex “marriages.”
The act means domestic partners can visit each other in the hospital, make critical health care decisions, receive survivor benefits and receive state income-tax deductions and inheritance-tax exemptions.
To obtain domestic-partner status, a couple must share a residence and show proof of joint financial status, property ownership or designation of the partner as the beneficiary in a retirement plan or will.
The law will not force private businesses to offer health coverage to same-sex partners of employees, but does require insurance companies to make it available.
A divorcelike proceeding in Superior Court would be necessary to end a domestic partnership. The state has 180 days to develop the procedure that couples will use to register.
The measure also includes some benefits for domestic unions between unmarried heterosexual couples 62 and older, covering older couples who do not want to get married because of the potential penalties on pensions and financial interests.
Critics argue that denying the benefits to younger, heterosexual couples amounts to discrimination, and other opponents have called the measure injurious to the institution of marriage and a veiled shift toward the recognition of homosexual “marriage.”
Domestic partnerships are recognized in California, Massachusetts and Hawaii, and civil unions between same-sex couples are legal in Vermont.
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