page_title: Same-sex marriage in New Jersey
section_title: Same-sex marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Same-sex marriage in New Jersey / Same-sex marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Participants at Garden State Equality May 2011 protest
context_page_description: Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in the U.S. state of New Jersey since October 21, 2013, the effective date of a trial court ruling invalidating the state's restriction of marriage to persons of different sexes.
  In September 2013, Mary C. Jacobson, Assignment Judge of the Mercer Vicinage of the Superior Court, ruled that as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2013 decision in United States v. Windsor, New Jersey's Constitution requires the state to recognize same-sex marriages. The Windsor decision held that the Federal Government was required to provide the same benefits to same-sex couples who were married under state law as to other married couples. Therefore, the state court reasoned in Garden State Equality v. Dow, because same-sex couples in New Jersey were limited to civil unions, which are not recognized as marriages under federal law, the state must permit civil marriage for same-sex couples. This ruling, in turn, relied on the 2006 decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court in Lewis v. Harris that the state was constitutionally required to afford the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples.
caption: 2011 protest in New Jersey by Garden State Equality in support of same-sex marriage and against deportation of LGBT spouses.
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