On Oct. 19, state Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the Division on Civil Rights announced that five New Jersey towns reached a resolution on updating their websites and policies when it comes to serving LGBTQ couples. These five towns were found to have allegedly discriminated against LGBTQ couples who were seeking marriage licenses.
Per the press release from the Office of the Attorney General, these five towns are: Estell Manor, Atlantic County; Fairview, Bergen County; Hanover, Morris County; Linden, Union County; and South Toms River, Ocean County.
The DCR initiated a probe as part of its Marriage Equality Enforcement Initiative against these five towns. This probe found that these towns previously had information on their websites “…that limited the availability of licenses to opposite-gender couples and excluded marriage license applicants with a nonbinary gender identity,” as described in the press release.
As NJ.com reports, this meant that these towns limited marriage license applications to that of qualifying opposite-sex couples.
A joint report released in June 2022 first brought up the issue of these municipalities not having LGBTQ+ inclusive language on their websites. The report, “Marriage Equality in New Jersey: A Latina/o/x Perspective” found many municipalities didn’t have LGBTQ inclusive language when it came to same-sex couples pursuing marriage licenses. The report also alleged that some of these towns were violating state law.
“Our findings indicate that many municipalities are out of step with the state law that permits same-sex marriage,” the report stated. “The language on their websites is often exclusionary and unwelcoming to same-sex couples.”
The joint report was compiled by the Latino Action Network Foundation, the Hudson Pride Center and Garden State Equality.
“Our laws forbid discrimination in marriage licensing and other basic government services on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, and no government here in New Jersey should stand in the way of that basic promise of equality,” said Sundeep Iyer, the director of the DCR.
Specifically, the Law Against Discrimination, or LAD, explicitly bars discrimination against a person’s gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics when it comes to a person seeking public accommodations or public services. This also includes a person’s actual identity and how they may be perceived by others.
These five towns have agreed to correctly change their websites to “remove gender restrictive language.”
“We launched the Marriage Equality Enforcement Initiative because of our deep commitment to ensuring that municipal governments uphold this basic promise, in both word and deed,” said Platkin. ”The resolutions announced today bring our state one step closer to fulfilling that promise.”
Four of the five towns — Estell Manor, Fairview, Linden, and South Toms River — all agreed to a resolution with the DCR quickly, through Assurances of Voluntary Compliance. These four towns all agreed to remove exclusive gender language and update their websites where they state unequivocally that marriage licenses are available to all LGBTQ qualifying applicants. Additionally, they agreed to make an undisclosed payment to the DCR along with providing LAD training to employees who issue marriage licenses and draft their websites. These towns also agreed to “create a written policy” that will state that discrimination against people seeking municipal services will be prohibited as stated in the press release.
Hanover Township mostly agreed to these terms — the exception being that the township would provide proof of their written anti-discrimination policy — through a different process called a Negotiated Settlement Agreement as the town wasn’t willing to resolve these issues at first.
“Marriage is a fundamental right, and in New Jersey, marriage equality is the law,” said Attorney General Platkin.
