When New Jersey became the first state outside liberal New England to approve same-sex civil unions, Craig Ross and Richard Cash were among the hundreds of couples who hurried to get their licenses. With Cash unemployed and his private health insurance costing $480 a month, the couple hoped the new law would be their financial white knight — compelling Ross’s employer to give his partner the same spousal benefits as heterosexual married couples.

But more than four months after New Jersey’s civil union law went into effect, Ross, 46 and Cash, 54, are among the many same-sex couples severely disillusioned with their prospects for legal equality. Citing federal regulations that allow many employers to effectively ignore state laws regarding corporate benefits, the Fortune 500 company where Ross has worked as a computer specialist for 21 years denied the couple’s request for joint coverage.

“I feel beaten up and deflated,” said Ross, who asked that his company’s name be withheld out of concern for his job. “Everyone celebrated when this thing passed because we thought it would be equal to marriage, that the only thing different would be that we called it `civil unions.’ But civil unions aren’t giving us the legal rights we hoped for.”