Not the happy couple.
Posted on 07/09/2007 12:29:45 PM PDT by bahblahbah
A lesbian couple in New Jersey has filed a complaint against a Methodist-owned campground, claiming illegal discrimination because their request for a civil union ceremony on the property was denied.
Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster in March applied for use of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association's Boardwalk Pavilion for their civil union ceremony, planned for September. The Methodist organization rejected their application and later told Bernstein in an email that it did not allow civil unions to be held on the pavilion.
Bernstein and Paster filed a complaint against the OGCMA in June, alleging illegal discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.
In their complaint, the couple requested "whatever relief is provided by law" including "compensatory damages for economic loss, humiliation, [and] mental pain." They also demanded that the pavilion be made available for their ceremony.
At a meeting of members, chief administrative officer Rev. Scott Hoffman argued that the campground had every right to prohibit civil unions. He called the pavilion a "church building" that "has always been used for worship services and gospel concerts."
The OGCMA is a Methodist organization, with a board of trustees comprising 10 pastors and 10 lay people. As such, the organization operates according to Methodist teachings, Hoffman said.
"Those who make decisions are bound to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, which states that homosexual unions cannot be performed in church buildings, whether by clergy or lay people," he said.
Hoffman also pointed out that locations not used for worship purposes - including the boardwalk and the beach - were open for civil union ceremonies.
Garden State Equality, a political action organization that represents "the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community," asked supporters to write to the OGCMA, saying the civil unions ban was an affront to the Ocean Grove community.
"It's hard to believe this is happening in our progressive state of New Jersey," GSE says on its website.
The organization contended that the ban was illegal, saying that it "violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination because the property is, in fact, public ... by virtue of having been used by the public for many years."
But the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group that is representing the OGCMA in the dispute, said that forcing the pavilion to host civil unions would be unconstitutional.
Brian Raum, ADF senior legal counsel, said enforcing the complaint would intrude on the rights of the Methodists as a religious organization.
"The government shouldn't force churches to violate their own religious principles," he said. "Private, religious property owners have the right to decide what can and cannot take place on their property."
According to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, entities that "offer goods, services, and facilities to the general public" are prohibited from "directly or indirectly denying or withholding any accommodation, service, benefit, or privilege to an individual" on the basis of sexual orientation.
But according to the ADF, New Jersey is still subject to the First Amendment, and state statutes that limit liberties guaranteed by the Constitution must be overturned.
New Jersey is considered to be one of the most liberal states in America. Last October, the state Supreme Court gave the New Jersey legislature 180 days to provide for civil unions under the law, and the legislature has complied.
Same-sex "marriage" is still illegal in New Jersey, although it is favored by 56 percent of residents, according to a Zogby poll.
When I was in grade school thru High School. I played in the Ocean Grove Summer Band and which had many concerts in that pavilion. It is right on the beach and directly in front of the Great Ocean Grove Auditorium. This small town, which borders Asbury Park to the North, is unlike any other place in NJ. My wife and I lived in the Grove for our first two years together.
When I was very young, the Blue Laws in the town forbade any vehiculat traffic on Sunday and you couldn’t even have your car parked on the streets on Sunday. The town has a number of entrances and those entrances were clogged with cars over the weekend.
Ocean Grove also contains numerous Victorian Style Homes and the tents for the old camp meeting in the vacinity of the auditorium. The town is referred to as “God’s square mile”. Nice place to visit but expensive. If you are at the jersey shore in Monmouth county, it is worth the time to visit. Hopefully this lawsuit will go in the favor of the Camp Meeting Association. Some traditions should remain traditions.
Not the happy couple.
Sounds a bit similar to the Catholic Church and adoptions in Mass.
“Those who make decisions are bound to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, which states that homosexual unions cannot be performed in church buildings, whether by clergy or lay people,” he said.
Cool - let’s try to rent a gay bar on a saturday night for a private-sale gun show.
I’ll bring the bullets.
Wait a minute. This can’t be. METHODISTS in New Jersey oppose “same-sex marriage”??? I was practically called a bigot at a Methodist church in NJ because I said I opposed it. The woman there said her pastor might even perform such marriages.
* kicking myself *
I should’ve gone over her head to the pastor myself. :-(
I agree. As long as the church can show that it does not allow civil union ceremonies of any kind, regardless of the gender, I don’t see how these ladies have an argument.
They remind me of the two lesbians who stayed at my mother’s B&B while I was managing it. My mother is Catholic and the place is decorated with various religious artwork, mostly Madonnas (the saintly kind!). The lesbians took all the stuff off the wall in the room they wre staying in and stuck them in a drawer, and left a note about how offended they were that we decorated the room with symbols of an institution that had oppressed them.
I would hope the Church has the courage to avoid the compulsion to render unto Caesar that which is rightfully God’s.
I don’t give a hoot what they look like, I don’t want to see two women going at it.
The only time I would want to see two women in bed is if they are with me, and they are only attending to me, not each other.
The New Jersey Supreme Court made it clear that if civil union were to be used as an alternative to homosexual marriage, that it would have to be equal in every respect to traditional marriage as far as rights were concerned. If this campground building was available to any heterosexual couple wishing to use it for marriage, regardless of their religious affilliations, then the courts will back up these two lesbians.
Certainly, churches that have standards for marrying people that are religious in nature for straight couples would be able to apply those standards to same sex couples. I'd like to know what the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association's rules are for allowing marriages in the building.
Pray tell, what Christian response do you have in mind?
Betty and Belinda making wedding plans, “Look Betty, here’s a lovely pavilion at this Methodist campground” Belinda, “Looks perfect!” “Let’s call them”
Let's see now. Male homosexuals put their pee-pees in another's anus. Then they shove their faces where their pee-pees were thrust.
In the case of Lesbians, they do practically the same thing, excepting that they employ snap on tools to simulate the thrusting.
This is a way of sexual pleasure that we want our children taught in our government schools.
Actually, I cannot understand why someone would use that pavilion for a wedding ceremony. Maybe it has been done but there are so many other amazing places in that town and the pavilion itself is not much to look at to be honest. It is almost like putting a roof over the boardwalk. It is very close to Ocean Ave and cars pass by within only a few feet.
That law is trouble regardless of the particular exception here. I will not obey a law like that if it is ever imposed on me. If the gov’t makes me a criminal for that then they make me a criminal.
Yea, she wants to have her cake and Edith, too...
My thoughts exactly!
You knew this was coming.
Those that decry church influence on the ‘state’ now want the state to dictate to the church....
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