NJ strips Ocean Grove

of tax break in gay unions flap

WAYNE PARRY. AP from philly.com on the Web, Sept. 17, 2007

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Refusing to allow gay couples to hold civil unions in a boardwalk pavilion has cost a Methodist church group in Monmouth County its state tax exemption for the property.

The state Department of Environmental Protection on Monday stripped the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of a property tax exemption for the boardwalk pavilion because the group refuses to make it equally available to all people, a requirement for tax exemption under state law.

"It is clear that the pavilion is not open to all persons on an equal basis," DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson wrote in a letter to the association Monday.

The association was getting the state tax exemption for its beach and boardwalk property in the Ocean Grove section of Neptune Township under a DEP program that rewards private owners who make their property available for public recreation.

It was not immediately clear how much the decision might cost the association, whose top administrator, the Rev. Scott Hoffman, did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

The pavilion is at the heart of a dispute between gay groups, who want the right to hold civil unions there, and the church group, which says the state is trying to force it to violate deeply held religious beliefs.

Same-sex civil unions are prohibited in church structures under the Methodist Church Book of Discipline.  The church considers the pavilion to be such a structure, but many in Ocean Grove's gay community say the pavilion is public space.

"Today's decision by the Corzine administration is a significant victory for liberty and justice for all in Ocean Grove," said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, the state's leading gay rights group.

The Camp Meeting Association has filed a federal lawsuit against the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, saying the association's right to religious freedom would be violated by being forced to sanction same-sex unions.

On Sunday, one of two lesbian couples who are suing the association held a civil union ceremony a few hundred feet from the pavilion.

Together for nearly 38 years, Ocean Grove residents Janice Moore, 70, and Emily Sonnessa, 77, were joined in a civil union on the fishing pier, within sight of the pavilion where they had hoped to hold their ceremony.

The association will still have tax exemptions for the beach and boardwalk, so long as their use does not discriminate against anyone, the DEP said.