By JOANNE L. PAPAIANNI
The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has ruled in favor of a lesbian couple who filed a complaint after being denied permission to hold their civil union ceremony in an Ocean Grove pavilion.
The couple, Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster, filed a formal discrimination complaint with the division in the spring of 2007 after the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which owns the pavilion, refused to allow the couple use of the pavilion for the ceremony.
On Monday the couple received a phone call from a American Civil Liberties Union representative saying the state had ruled they had probable cause to file the complaint.
“Needless to say we were very happy to hear that,” Bernstein said.
The next step, said Bernstein, is for an administrative law judge to rule on the remedy.
“Our hope is that the Camp Meeting Association will now allow weddings and civil unions for everybody,” Bernstein said.
In April of 2007, shortly after the civil complaint was filed, the association ceased allowing all couples, gay or straight, from holding services in the pavilion.
Bernstein said she has received numerous phone calls since the ruling was decided.
“Yes, yes, yes, dozens of phone calls, not just the press, friends congratulating us – they knew before we did,” she said.
After they were denied use of the beachfront pavilion Bernstein and Paster held a civil union ceremony on the Fishing Pier in Ocean Grove while the case was being decided.
Bernstein said the couple are happy they decided to file the complaint.
“It was a very difficult decision to begin with. We just didn’t want to put ourselves out there, but if we didn’t do it, it wouldn’t have happened and we felt very strongly about it,” she said.
Bernstein said she and Paster were in New York City this week after visiting friends when she got the call on her cell phone.
“We were waiting for a train at Penn Station,” she said. “We got a call from the ACLU telling us we prevailed in the case.”
After the case had been filed in the spring of 2007 a group of citizens dedicated to supporting civil rights for all in Ocean Grove formed Ocean Grove United.
The group said in a statement after the ruling, “Ocean Grove United appreciates that the DCR has viewed the issue in the same way that we do and has confirmed that the pavilion is not religious in nature but a public accommodation and therefore subject to the NJ Law Against Discrimination.”
The group did, however, say the decision in no way should require religious groups to endorse or perform civil unions.
“Only that a public accommodation must be open for equal use by all, regardless of sexual orientation.”
The Camp Meeting Association is being represented in its lawsuit by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.
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