Life just got more difficult for churches in New Jersey that have theological objections to blessing gay unions. In a ruling from the state Civil Rights Division, the United Methodist affiliated Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association was found to have discriminated against a pair of lesbians when it denied their request to use an Association facility:
The finding, issued by Division on Civil Rights Director J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, said an investigation had determined there was reason to pursue anti-discrimination charges against the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association for denying Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster permission to rent its Boardwalk Pavilion for their civil union ceremony. Vespa-Papaleo also intervened as a complainant in the case.
Evidently in New Jersey it is OK for a state official to play prosecutor, judge and jury in a case.
Bernstein and Paster, who live in Ocean Grove, had applied for permission to rent the Boardwalk Pavilion for their civil union ceremony in March 2007, but the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association denied their request because it said the civil union ceremony conflicted with the religious beliefs of the United Methodist Church. The Association said it was not required to permit civil union ceremonies in its Boardwalk Pavilion based on First Amendment rights.
However, an investigation found that the refusal to permit the civil union ceremony violated the public accommodation provisions of the state’s Law Against Discrimination and did not violate First Amendment Rights. The Division investigation found that the Camp Meeting Association had been permitting the public to use the Boardwalk Pavilion for weddings and secular events and that the Association had gained a Green Acres tax exemption from the state Department of Environmental Protection nearly 20 years ago after a finding that the Pavilion will be open to the public “on an equal basis.” (Following filing of the civil rights complaint, the DEP rejected a renewal of the Green Acres tax exemption for the Boardwalk Pavilion in September 2007.)
The Finding of Probable Cause states in part, “When it invites the public at large to use it, the Association is subject to the Law Against Discrimination, and enforcement of that law in this context does not affect the Association’s constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion.”
That last claim is extraordinary–public accommodations laws that have never been applicable to religious facilities now trump the First Amendment in New Jersey. Here’s where the problem comes in: A lot of churches will permit non-church members to use its facility for a wedding, and many of those same churches will open their doors to secular events (anything from concerts to AA meetings). While the Camp Meeting Association pavilion isn’t a church building, it certainly is a “religious facility” at least as much as a church family life center or amphitheater would be. What New Jersey is saying, in essence, is that if churches allow their facilities to be used by the public, they are risking being sued by gays and having the state CRD play enforcer to coerce them into having their buildings used for purposes to which they are unalterably opposed. The public will be hurt by that, as churches make perfect places to hold many events, and churches will be hurt, by being unable to extend hospitality to others, but I suppose that doesn’t make any difference to the enforcers of the new sexual morality orthodoxy.
There are lots of people out there trying to make the case that legalizing gay marriage will have no effect on anyone else. This case suggests otherwise.
(Via Alliance Alert.)
December 30, 2008 at 11:25 am
Actually, it isn’t a church, it is simply a gazebo, a public accommodation in a public park that has been used for all sorts of weddings, including, I believe, a Buddhist ceremony.
On a daily basis it is generally used as a place sweaty joggers hang out.
It is therefore not, in any way, a “religious facility” any more than any other pavilion in any other public park is a “religious facility”.
December 30, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hold on my friend. This case has nothing to do with gay marraige.
The church was getting tax cuts with the proviso that the facility would be open to all, no exceptions.
If they did not want to open their facility to all, then they should have not accepted the tax cuts.
December 30, 2008 at 1:16 pm
The tax exemption had to do with environmental benefits (Green Acres), and was given in 1989, when no one envisioned gay marriage or civil unions. The Association has since changed their policy on weddings at the pavilion (it can’t be used by anyone), and the tax exemption has been withdrawn.
Alan: According to the CRD decision, no one but Christians had used the pavilion for weddings. And it isn’t in a “public park”–the property is owned by the OGCMA. If it had been a public park, it would never have been disputed that the couple could use it. They wanted to use private property that was available on “an equal basis,” as the report cited above puts it. That basis was equal–I don’t imagine they would have allowed civil unions of any kind, gay or straight, to take place there, only weddings, and NJ still hasn’t adopted those.
December 30, 2008 at 1:35 pm
It’s rather important to realize that the OGCMA and Ocean Grove itself are nearly indistinguishable. The town was incorporated by OGCMA in 1869 in order to be a religious community on the Jersey Shore.
Therefore, this pavilion is the equivalent of the gazebo in your local town park.
This isn’t their first legal run-in. They closed the gates to Ocean Grove to all wheeled traffic on Sundays until 1980, when the courts forced them to open it due to the conflict between church and state.
It’s also important to note that the NJ state constitution bans any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and has for a number of years.
December 30, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Sorry David, your facts are incorrect. The owners of this pavilion have stated clearly that they would have had no problem with a gay marriage ceremony on the boardwalk leading up to the pavilion. The boardwalk too is a public accommodation. The association has two other sites, Thornley Chapel and Bishop Janes Tabernacle, that are indeed church buildings, and the association can restrict the use of those buildings any way they want. The gazebo, however, was not built as a church or religious building, but was built to house a scale model of Jerusalem.
And the exemption is not simply for environmental benefits. That was a different exemption. The tax exemption that a. mcewen is talking about is a *property tax exemption* granted because the pavilion was public access property, in other words, privately held, public lands. The exemption covered the beach, the boardwalk, and the pavilion.
The association itself made the boardwalk and the pavilion public access property. If they didn’t want to do so, they shouldn’t have done so.
Unfortunately for your “argument”, this has nothing to do with free speech, or the exercise of religion, or the use of private spaces. I’d suggest changing the title of your post to “Needing an excuse to write yet another post on gay marriage trumps facts.”
June 11, 2012 at 4:37 pm
[...] Gay Rights Trump First Amendment in NJ - this writer jumped the gun a little, complaining about the Civil Rights Division decision to investigate. [...]