Can New Jersey Punish Methodists For Marriage?

by Maggie Gallagher - September 19th, 2007 - Townhall.com

The headline news on the gay marriage issue is that on Tuesday, Maryland's supreme court joined the growing list of state high courts upholding marriage as the union of husband and wife.

The majority of the court held that sexual orientation is not a suspect class, that there is no scientific consensus that orientation is immutable, that marriage does not discriminate based on gender, that there is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage, that laws defining marriage as a union of husband and wife are substantially different from those banning interracial marriage, and that the historic link between marriage and procreation justifies the state's definition of marriage as a union of husband and wife.

Behind this slam-dunk is a far more ominous and less noticed headline, buried in the metro section of Tuesday's New York Times: "Group Loses Tax Break Over Gay Union Issue."

For the first time, a religious organization in New Jersey is being punished by the government because it refused to permit same-sex civil union ceremonies on its property.

Despite its historic nature, this officially sanctioned discrimination against a religious group did not require a special act of the legislature or ruling of the court to accomplish. A state bureaucrat, one Lisa Jackson (the state commissioner on environmental protection), quietly sent a letter informing the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Methodist organization, that the pavilion it owns on the beach is no longer eligible for exemption from state real estate taxes. (The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association also remains the target of a state investigation into whether it has violated the state's anti-discrimination laws by refusing to permit same-sex ceremonies on its property.)

The proof of the war against the historical tradition of marriage by left wing radicals is the job of the person who launched this attack on a Chrisitan group. The bureacrat's position in government is ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION. These environmental positions have become the bastion of left wing socialist extremists who want to change society to conform with their radical views. What, you have to wonder, has the environment got to do with whether or not same sex marriage is jammed down the throats of our nation?

You can be sure that the left wing tyrants on our courts will embrace this new attack on marriage and find environmental rights in the small print of the Constitution (which only they can find) supporting the premise that same sex marriage is necessary to protect the environment.

If it wasn't so serious, this would be funny.