Civil Union Dispute Pits Methodist Retreat Against Gays Who Aided in Its Rebirth

Dith Pran/The New York Times A Sunday worship service at the Boardwalk Pavilion in Ocean Grove, N.J., where two gay couples sought to have their civil union ceremonies.

By JILL P. CAPUZZO, nytimes.com on the Web, September 3, 2007

OCEAN GROVE, N.J., Aug. 30 — At their annual meeting on Monday, leaders of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association are expected to report on the season’s successes: the active youth ministry programs, the wide range of musicians who performed here, the revenues generated from beach badges.

They are less likely to address the subject that has been dominating discussions in this seashore resort all summer: the escalating litigation over the Methodist group’s efforts to block civil union ceremonies from taking place on its property.

But gay rights groups have planned a large rally outside the meeting to make sure the matter is not forgotten.

At stake is the future of Ocean Grove, where, dating to 1870, all the land, beach and 1,000 feet of the sea itself have been owned by the Methodist organization — and which, at least for the past decade, has seen the opening of a large number of gay-owned restaurants, hotels and shops.

“They’re pitting people against people,” Randy Bishop, an Ocean Grove innkeeper and deputy mayor of Neptune Township, Ocean Grove’s governing body, said of the Methodists. “This is one of the towns that embodies the spirit of what a community is, and to have this happen, it’s a shame to see it being torn apart.”

The conflict began earlier this year when two lesbian couples asked to have their civil union ceremonies at the group’s Boardwalk Pavilion, a site used for Sunday services, weekday gospel concerts, weddings, concerts and Civil War re-enactments. The couples’ requests were rejected, and they complained to the state’s Division on Civil Rights, which began a discrimination investigation.

Then last month, the Camp Meeting Association sued the state, claiming that the investigation violated its First Amendment rights and that civil unions were contrary to the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline.

Last week, United States District Court Judge Joel A. Pisano refused to issue a temporary injunction halting the state investigation, and the state filed a countermotion asking the federal government not to interfere in a state legal matter. A hearing was scheduled for Oct. 1.

The public versus private status of not only the pavilion but also much of the Camp Meeting Association’s property is at the crux of the debate.

Since 1989, Ocean Grove’s beach, boardwalk and oceanfront road have received tax-exempt status under the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program, which was created to encourage use of privately owned space for public recreation and conservation. In its original application for the exemption — which saves the group about $500,000 a year and is up for renewal on Sept. 15, according to Bernard Haney, the Neptune Township tax assessor — the association noted that the properties were open to the public and that the pavilion had been used by outside groups.

Some see an inherent conflict between the association seeking tax-exempt status as a public open space with one state agency while suing another state agency for violating its rights as a private religious group.

“They’ve taken state, federal and local funds by representing that they are open to the public,” said United States Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat who represents the area, noting that beyond tax exemptions, the group has gotten numerous government grants over the years for building and boardwalk repairs and beach replenishment. “Until now, nobody has ever said that you had to abide by the tenets of the church in deciding who uses the buildings or owns the houses.”

Lee Moore, a spokesman for the New Jersey attorney general’s office, which oversees the Division on Civil Rights, would say only, “We are aware of the Green Acres application.”

Mr. Pallone sent a letter to the Camp Meeting Association’s leaders on Aug. 15 reminding them of $250,000 that he helped procure when he was a state senator to repair the Great Auditorium’s roof and of federal funds he secured for boardwalk repairs after a 1992 storm.

But Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a family and church rights legal organization that is representing the Camp Meeting Association in its federal lawsuit, said the group had never represented itself as anything but a religious organization, and challenged the idea that receiving government aid meant relinquishing one’s rights. Indeed, many religious groups get state and federal grants of various types.

“A religious organization does not give up any First Amendment rights because it avails itself of services available to anyone,” Mr. Raum said. “Disaster relief is available to anyone, you don’t have to denounce some of your fundamental beliefs.”

Founded in 1869 by a group of ministers seeking a permanent seaside retreat, the Camp Meeting Association bought its first six acres here as a “site to assemble from year to year and enjoy our summer rest in bathing, fishing, worshiping or sauntering socially along the shore,” according to the writings of the Rev. Ellwood Stokes, a founding member.

Within a few years, the association had bought all the land now called Ocean Grove — about one square mile — and was granted a charter from the state allowing it to remain a religious retreat. Today, home and business owners own their buildings and hold 99-year renewable leases on the land, paying the association $10 per lot each year.

Over the years, Ocean Grove has tried to establish itself as its own borough. The Camp Meeting Association sets most of the rules governing the community, including prohibitions against building anything in one’s front yard that would block a neighbor’s view of the ocean. In the past it even dictated when laundry could be hung outside — on Mondays only, so as not to offend weekend vacationers.

One rule that residents and visitors found particularly onerous was the dictate that all cars, parked or moving, be removed from the roads from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. The car ban, along with the blue laws that prohibited shops from opening on Sundays, was ruled unconstitutional by the State Supreme Court in 1979.

Longtime residents like Gail Shaffer, vice president of the Historical Society of Ocean Grove, refer to that period as “when the gates came down.”

“There used to be a chain across the road with a lantern hanging telling people not to bring their cars in here,” said Ms. Shaffer, noting that even President Ulysses S. Grant had to abide by this rule and walk into town when he came to visit his sister.

The Methodists’ sway over the community remains significant. No alcohol is sold in Ocean Grove, and on Sundays, the beach does not open until 12:30 p.m. But since the end of the blue laws, the town once derided as “Ocean Grave” has seen a commercial rebirth, driven largely by gay-owned businesses.

The two constituencies have coexisted peaceably — until the recent scuffle over civil unions.

“We’re going to tell the Camp Meeting Association that enough is enough,” Steven Goldstein, executive director of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said about Monday’s protest. “This is public property. The law is on our side.”

Representative Pallone, for his part, expressed hope that “if the suit is dropped, we can go back to a situation where everybody lives together and tolerates each other. And they can go back to getting their federal funds.”