Couple wants Legislature to OK gay marriage
By: Joseph Harvie
Suyin and Sarah Lael were straightening up their Dayton townhouse Monday night, getting decorations ready for Halloween.
Their daughters Tanaj, 7, and Danica Lael, 6, were playing in the front yard, checking to make sure the fake cobwebs were still up on the front hedges. Their oldest daughter Zenzali Lael, 9, was sitting in the couple’s living room finishing up her homework.
It was a normal night, the couple said, except that they weren’t playing chauffeur for their daughters.
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Half a loaf is still half a loaf |
"This is the only night that we didn’t have to drive the kids to soccer practice or to a game," Suyin Lael said.
However, the Laels do have other things on their minds. Suyin Lael and Sarah Lael, were among 14 plaintiffs seven same-sex couples in a suit that was decided last week by the state Supreme Court. The couples were seeking the right to marry in New Jersey.
The court, in its 4-3 decision on Oct. 25, said that gay and lesbian couples are entitled to all the rights and benefits that heterosexual married couple receive under state law.
However, it also ruled that how those rights are codified and what the same-sex arrangement would be called a marriage, a civil union, or something else should be left to the political arena. It ordered the state Legislature to act within 180 days to bring state law into compliance with the court’s decision.
The dissenting justices concurred with the majority in endorsing an extension of rights to gay couples, but said the majority should have ruled that gay and lesbian couples could be married under New Jersey law.
Sarah Lael said that she was happy the court ruled gay and lesbians were afforded the same rights and she is hoping the Legislature will do the "right thing" and support gay marriage.
"Calling it anything else would not make us equal," said Suyin Lael, an administrator for a non-profit organization.
The couple met in 1990 at a five-day conference on working with behaviorally challenged people. They noticed each other from across the room and both felt a connection to each other. They have been in a committed relationship since.
"We love each other," said Sarah Lael, a speech therapist. "We are devoted to each other. We are committed to one another. To me that’s what marriage is all about."
Their 16 years together are evident in the way they interact, the two speaking in tandem, finishing and completing each other’s thoughts.
Suyin Lael said that gays and lesbians are often treated differently just because of their life decision, and the high court’s decision was worded so strongly that she hopes the Legislature will agree with the three dissenters and endorse same-sex marriage.
"We are discriminated against every day, and with this decision there is an option out there for the Legislature to do the right thing so we won’t be discriminated against in the future," Suyin Lael said.
The Laels said that they don’t think that the phrase "civil union" explains their relationship and what they wanted to accomplish with the lawsuit.
"When you think of a union you think of the Teamsters or the iron workers," Suyin Lael said. "We wouldn’t want that."
"When you love someone you ask them to marry you, not ‘do you want to get civil-unioned,’" Sarah Lael said.
The couple has also chosen not to have an unofficial ceremony in front of their friends and relatives.
"It’d be half empty," Sarah Lael said.
"We went to a protest instead," Suyin Lael said as Sarah Lael laughed.
In 1993, the couple got "married" with hundreds of other gay couples at a protest in front of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington D.C.
"We weren’t prepared," Sarah Lael said. "We bought our rings at a subway station. We didn’t know we needed anything, we just went and were wrinkly from being in the car for five hours."
The couple said that same-sex marriage would not impose on anyone’s religious beliefs either.
"This is a civil marriage," Sarah Lael said. "This has nothing to do with religion."
"I hope people see that us being able to get married will not affect anyone else’s marriage," Suyin Lael said.

