That's the "d'oh!" message New Jersey gay couples are sending lawmakers on the one-year anniversary of civil unions in the state. Hundreds of people reported difficulty in obtaining for their partners shared benefits as basic as health insurance. The New York Times reports:
Jodi Weiner, an electrician from Montclair, said that when she tried to get health benefits for her partner of nine years, she was told that her union’s plans did not cover civil unions. It was only when she mentioned that they had been married in Massachusetts that her partner was able to get benefits. “The words ‘civil union’ were not good enough for Sally and me to get equality in New Jersey, but the word ‘marriage’ is,” she said at a hearing of the Civil Union Review Commission last month. “We can all talk about how the civil union law is supposed to work just like marriage. But in my case and others, it doesn’t work that way in the real world.”
--Dana Goldstein
