Same-sex pairs sue to marry in New Jersey Seven couples say their constitutional rights are being violated. The state could be the next battleground in the national debate.

Seven gay and lesbian couples from New Jersey who have been denied marriage licenses in the last several years sued state officials yesterday, contending their right to equal protection under the state constitution has been violated.

In their lawsuit, filed in Hudson County, the couples contend that New Jersey's statutes, which define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, have blocked them from formalizing their unions and obtaining the many benefits of marriage, including tax, health-care, educational and inheritance benefits.

In doing so, the couples said, state officials have violated their right to equal protection under the New Jersey Constitution, which states that all people "have certain natural and unalienable rights," among them "enjoying and defending life and liberty . . . and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness."

"These couples are tired of working hard to be first-class families . . . but being treated as second-class citizens," said David S. Buckel, a senior staff attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the lead attorney on the case.

"They are simply seeking the civil right to marry," he said. "We have before, piece by piece, broken down prohibitions to marriage. . . . Now it is time to end the discrimination against loving, committed couples of the same sex."

With the filing, which names as defendants the commissioner of the Department of Human Services and eight state and local registrars of vital statistics, New Jersey is poised to become the next staging ground in the contentious debate over same-sex marriages.

Currently, no state permits marriages between couples of the same sex, though the battle to gain that right has been fought in several states, including Hawaii, Alaska and Vermont.

In Vermont, the state Supreme Court in 1999 ruled that the state constitution entitled same-sex couples to all the protections and benefits afforded by marriage. But it left it up to the legislature to decide whether to permit same-sex couples to marry. The legislature in 2000 voted to create "civil unions," which give same-sex couples all the benefits of marriage except one: the right to marry.

Buckel said yesterday that the suit by the New Jersey couples seeks to go beyond what Vermont has offered to guarantee full marital rights for same-sex couples, though he acknowledged the possibility that what unfolded in Vermont could happen in New Jersey.