New Jersey Marriage Decision Imminent

Garden State Equality, the New Jersey LGBTI civil rights group, sent out an e-mail today to supporters stating that:

The New Jersey Supreme Court will hand down its ruling on marriage equality for same-sex couples on or before Wednesday, October 25th, the last day of Chief Justice Deborah Poritz’s service on the court. That means the ruling will come down on ANY DAY WITHIN THE NEXT THREE WEEKS. . . . The New Jersey Supreme Court does not give more than one day’s notice on which decisions it is handing down the next day. The Court announces its next-day schedule of decisions at http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/notices.htm.

If you’re in or around New Jersey, you may want to participate in the day-of-decision rally or day-after-decision telephone town meeting on the legal impact of the Supreme Court decision. The Garden State Equality site has the details, and they note:

These events will take place whether our side wins or loses the case. If our side wins, our campaign is about protecting the victory from a state constitutional ban on marriage equality. If our side loses, our campaign for marriage equality seamlessly surges forward, building on our tremendous momentum of the last four years. We would instantly pivot to passing a marriage-equality statute in the state legislature.

While we wait, I thought I’d offer up these interesting tidbits about a place many of us know only as the home of Tony Soprano.

From the pages of Wikipedia (mostly unverified, yet still intriguing):

• New Jersey is the birthplace of many modern inventions such as FM radio, the motion picture camera, the lithium battery, the light bulb, transistors, and the electric train. Other New Jersey creations include: the drive-in movie, the cultivated blueberry, cranberry sauce, the postcard, the boardwalk, the zipper, the phonograph, saltwater taffy, the dirigible, the first use of a submarine in warfare, and the ice cream cone.
• The first officially recorded baseball game in history was played at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey.
• The properties in the United States version of the board game Monopoly are named after the streets of Atlantic City, NJ.
• The four-mile long Boardwalk in Atlantic City was the world’s first boardwalk and is still its largest.
• New Jersey has more horses per square mile than any other state. The United States Equestrian Team now is headquartered in Gladstone after being founded in Morristown.
• The book Jaws by Peter Benchley, which inspired the classic film of the same name, was based on a series of actual shark attacks during the summer of 1916 that took place in Matawan and elsewhere off the Jersey Shore.
• New Jersey is one of only two states (along with Oregon) where self-service filling of gasoline is prohibited.

My partner and I lived in New Jersey for a time, and while some parts of it lived up to its “all turnpike, all the time” reputation, there were also any number of beautiful state parks, woods, and beaches. The perfect spots for fall weddings . . . though I suspect, if the ruling goes our way, there will be people simply rushing to the nearest Justice of the Peace’s office. Here’s hoping.