After Two Decades, Monmouth Junction Same-Sex Couple Sees Marriage on Horizon

For years they have waited, hoping against hope that someday they would be granted the same rights as other couples.

For nearly a quarter-century, Marsha Shapiro, 58, and Louise Walpin, 60, of Monmouth Junction, have sat by while TV reality shows with complete strangers marry each other on the spot to win money; where celebrities marry and divorce within 24 hours, yet still they have to wait after 24 years together wishing for the same rights as a couple.

That fight may finally be nearing an end as a ruling is expected any day from the state Supreme Court on a lower court’s finding that a delay to legalized same-sex marriage violates the equal protection rights of gay couples.

"We're very hopeful. We expected the governor (to appeal the lower court ruling), but we're just ecstatic that (Mercer County Judge Mary Jacobson) granted our equality," Walpin said. "She made such a strong point that we're the ones harmed by not being able to get married, and the state only has abstract harms. Marriage has changed over 2,000 years. Many things have changed. Massachusetts has same-sex marriage, and look, the world hasn't fallen apart. Amazing isn't it?"

In September, Jacobson ruled that any official empowered to perform marriages within the state must also do so for same-sex couples, beginning Oct. 21, according to court documents. Jacobson's ruling came months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

In her decision, Jacobson found that couples in a civil union are denied federal benefits reserved for married couples, which creates an illegal inequality.

"We have a civil union," Shaprio said. "We want to get married. We want it all, what everyone else takes for granted."

Walpin and Shapiro were married by an ordained rabbi in 1992 and went to Vermont to have a civil union before it was legal in New Jersey, and then obtained it in-state once New Jersey recognized the unions. They also obtained domestic partnership and said they've jumped through every hoop there is.  

Walpin and Shapiro, who have lived in South Brunswick for over 20 years and have raised four children together, joined the lawsuit filed two years ago in the Superior Court of Mercer County seeking marriage equality on behalf of Garden State Equality and six other same-sex couples.

The suit alleged that existing civil union laws simply do not provide the same rights and protections other citizens receive, and that it has opened same-sex couples up to discrimination and countless indignities.

When applying for jobs over the years, Walpin said she was constantly forced to out herself by asking if the prospective employer offered civil union benefits.

The specter of revealing personal details about their lives to complete strangers has also come up during the couple's darkest moments. Their son Aaron died in 2008 at the age of 21, after being born with profound medical and cognitive disabilities.

While at the funeral home making arrangements for Aaron, the couple had to explain what a civil union was at the lowest point of their lives.

"I had to introduce Louise as a civil union partner and the funeral director said what is that?" Shapiro said in a prior interview. "Then he asked for proof of our relationship. At a time when we were grieving, we had to provide our civil union information to a funeral director."

The couple noted that any time they face a medical situation that requires an emergency visit to the hospital, they must first grab their union papers because the hospital still recognizes them as single.

"Any time we go to the hospital we fear what will happen if one of us needs to make a medical decision," Walpin said. "We shouldn't have to worry about people understanding our relationship. Who has to think about that before going to the hospital? But we know people understand the word married. As soon as this goes through, we can put our status as married and then everyone will understand. Each day we're suffering because the same benefits are not available to people with a civil union."

With the Supreme Court widely expected to uphold the lower court ruling in Mercer County, for the first time Walpin and Shaprio have begun to eye a future as a married couple. After many years of waiting, Walpin proposed to Shapiro over the weekend.

"For the first time in my life, I'm engaged," Shapiro said. "It feels so right, so legal, with the same dignity and respect all other engaged people have. We've been together for 24 years and we're finally engaged. It's exhilarating. I can't tell you how meaningful this engagement is to me because we know, this time, it will lead to marriage."

Should the ruling be upheld to allow same-sex marriages to begin on Oct. 21, the couple doesn't plan on waiting long to tie the knot.

"We're talking about 12:01 a.m. This is the promised land," Shapiro said. "We know it's coming one way or another. The governor can only delay it for so long. He's trying, but I believe even he knows it's coming. Whether through litigation or legislation, we will have marriage."