Lesbian intolerance in NJ

The “Camp Meeting Association” (a Methodist organization of Ocean Grove, New Jersey) owns property with a pavilion by the ocean. Occasionally they rent the pavilion for marriages but they have a policy against same-sex unions.

New Jersey recognizes same-sex civil unions so a lesbian couple applied to use the facility for their ceremony and they were turned down. They have now filed a formal complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights (Star-Ledger) claiming that their civil rights have been violated.

Welcome to the brave new world of same-sex unions. Although there are thousands of miles of ocean front, and thousands of places to have a civil union ceremony, this lesbian couple, demonstrating total intolerance for an organization's religious convictions, will not be happy until they can get this one facility.

If this were a public facility it would be different, but private organizations, whether Christian, Muslim, atheist, gay, etc., should be able to choose who can use their facilities--and so should the Camp Meeting Association, not just because their pavilion is private property, but because freedom of religion is at stake.

But like the gay activist groups in Massachusetts that forced the closure of a Catholic adoption agency, it is apparently not enough for some homosexuals to have legalized same-sex unions. They want to force people, by law, to recognize and accommodate their sexual lifestyle even if doing so violates an organization’s religious convictions.

One of the most significant political issues with same-sex unions is not so much the legal union itself, it is the fact that the more same-sex unions become official public policy, the more gay rights groups will seek to coerce religious colleges, schools, camps, charities and even churches to violate their religious convictions by force of law. Freedom of religion is at stake and gay rights groups are doing absolutely nothing to alleviate this concern by standing up for religious liberty.