It might have been lost in all the commotion preceding the drunken revelry of Madison's Halloween weekend, but a case decided in New Jersey showed that courts can get an issue right.

Without appealing to the leftist mantra of semantic equality, nor the right's naíve insistence that same-sex couples don't exist and don't deserve rights, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided fairly and with restraint that marriage, or something of a different name, is a right guaranteed to all.

The decision should prompt Wisconsinites, in the middle of our referendum battle on marriage and civil unions, to realize a truism of modernity: Conventions actually do exist, but we must ensure that these do not seriously impede equality.

New Jersey's decision, Lewis v. Harris, decided that the government's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples constituted "no substantial relationship to a legitimate government purpose," asserting that the denial of such is problematic on the basis of its violation of Equal Protection Rights guaranteed by the New Jersey Constitution.

However, where the court departed from the official hard-line of Lambda Legal, an organization devoted to LGBT civil rights, is in seeking to divorce the words “marriage” and “equality.”

The court held that such semantics were better "left to the democratic process" rather than the court. Call this case an example of judicial restraint, where the courts understood their function was simply to void or affirm law, not to make it.

Conservatives have slammed other cases, such as Goodridge v. Massachusetts, claiming that the courts went too far by granting full marriage rights to gay couples. While the basis for their contentions is false, their argument is not entirely without merit.

The truth is that the justices in Goodridge did go too far. The justices even acknowledge as much by claiming they are "mindful that [their] decision marks a change in the history of our marriage law."

However, their decision did not simply change the definition of marriage law, it also changed the definition of marriage itself.

Marriage as traditionally defined has been between a man and a woman. This convention has not been known as anything else in its entire existence. To simply redefine marriage is to change culture, not just law.

New Jersey acknowledged this, and did not simply placate the concerns of leftists bent upon semantic equality. Rather than making law by claiming that marriage is the only word that can be used for equality, New Jersey's court allowed for its citizens to make that decision themselves.

Leftist hesitation to allow the electorate to decide cases of minority rights is certainly understandable, but when it comes down to a simple choice between words, one has to question why the compromise has not been made.

New Jersey allowed for its public to make this word choice, but put it under the limitation that any word chosen would be subject the standards of equality the court had outlined.

Wisconsinites should be mindful of this choice, as the current referendum is not simply the banning of same-sex couples of rights to marriage, but also civil unions, the very thing New Jersey's court protects.

Wisconsinites will disavow this ruling if the amendment passes. Wisconsin's bill, by banning any institution similar to marriage, eliminates the possibility that roughly 10 percent of its society will ever be able to join in a legally recognized union.

We should be aware that conventions do exist in our society and not all of them are bad. Mere realizations that differences exist between groups and people do not solely imply inequality, as these differences can be used to actually increase equality at times.

But when conservatives demand that our society use culture and its conventions and differences to perpetrate inequality, they violate a strong and meaningful set of principles, which define modernity: law.

Wisconsinites, and society in general, need to ask: Does the word “marriage” really mean “equality” or are civil unions a reasonable and equal solution?

The answer is one that New Jersey's court appropriately left up to the people because, after all, it is a question about both culture and law.

Robert Phansalkar ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in languages and cultures of Asia and political science.