The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) Wednesday issued notices of violation to 28 municipalities in the state for civil rights violations committed through exclusionary marriage license practices against non-binary people.
The notices allege that the municipalities in question violated the Law Against Discrimination (LAD) by requiring non-binary people applyling for marriage licenses to misgender themselves under oath either as male or female.
According to the Attorney General’s office, such a requirement is inconsistent with the marriage license application on the state’s health department website, which includes a gender option for non-binary individuals and has since 2019. The municipalities face penalties of up to $10,000 if the issue is not resolved. The state was motivated to act because of a report that discovered “certain municipalities violated the LAD by expressly limiting marriage licenses to opposite-sex couples.”
If the municipalities fail to correct this issue, they will face up to $10,000 in fines. The notice also contains an offer of settlement if municipalities update the marriage licenses on their websites, include a link to the New Jersey Department of Health’s marriage license application, remove any gender-restrictive language pertaining to marriage licenses from their websites, adopt a written policy prohibiting discrimination against those using the municipality’s services, and provide anti-discrimination training to all employees.
The Law Against Discrimination prohibits discrimination by organizations serving the public on the basis of actual or perceived race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or other protected characteristics. According to the DCR, the exclusion of a non-binary gender identifying option violates this provision.
The notices served to the 28 counties are the latest action in the DCR’s Marriage Equality Enforcement Initiative, which was implemented to ensure that municipalities in New Jersey comply with the Law Against Discrimination and provide gender-inclusive marriage licensing options to the public.
