September 22, 2007
USA Today brings us up to date on the War of the McGreeveys:
Former Gov. James E. McGreevey was ordered Friday to more than double the amount of support he pays to his estranged wife.
The nation’s first openly gay governor should pay Dina Matos McGreevey $2,500 a month, Superior Court Judge Karen M. Cassidy ruled. Matos McGreevey had been receiving $1,129 a month, but maintained that was insufficient to meet the needs of herself and the couple’s 5-year-old daughter.
Cassidy rejected Matos McGreevey’s request for $4,000 a month, noting that Matos McGreevey said she needed to spend $2,200 a month on clothing. “It seemed a little high,” the judge said.
A lawyer for the former governor, Matthew D. Piermatti, argued that his client’s income was decreasing now that he’d entered an Episcopal seminary. They had offered to increase support to $1,691 a month.
. . .
Matos McGreevey earns $82,000 at Columbus Hospital in Newark. The former governor has earned an average of about $155,000 a year for the past five years.
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Jim McGreevey,
New Jersey
September 21, 2007
Lifesite isn’t too happy about it, but we are:
OCEAN GROVE, N.J., September 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced on Monday that it was stripping the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of its tax-exempt status for part of its property. The Methodist camp made the news earlier this year after it refused, for religious reasons, to allow a lesbian couple to hold a “civil-union” ceremony at a pavilion on the camp’s property.
. . .
Until recently the camp held tax-exempt status on its entire boardwalk property under a New Jersey program that gives tax-breaks to organizations that open up their property to the general public.
In June, however, Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Pester, a lesbian, filed a complaint with the state attorney general’s office on the basis of sexual orientation discrimination, after Ocean Grove refused to allow them to hold their “civil-union” ceremony at the camp’s pavilion. A second lesbian couple has also sued Ocean Grove. New Jersey’s anti-discrimination laws currently forbid those who “offer goods, services, and facilities to the general public” from “directly or indirectly denying or withholding any accommodation, service, benefit, or privilege to an individual” on the basis of sexual orientation.
. . .
In August, the Christian camp preempted the complaints currently pending against it by itself suing New Jersey state officials. According to the Alliance Defense fund, which is representing the camp, the attorney general’s office is violating First Amendment protections by investigating Ocean Grove. “Religious groups have the right to make their own decisions without government interference,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “The government can’t force a private Christian organization to use its property in a way that would violate its own religious beliefs.”
See also:
Public advocate questions group’s ban on civil unions
Lesbian couple denied beachfront access for civil union
N.J. church group sues over gay ceremony
Judge may rule Oct. 1 on gay union motions
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Marriage Equality,
Methodists,
New Jersey
September 12, 2007
Kate Walter recalls:
When I was a kid growing up at the Jersey Shore we made jokes about “Ocean Grave” and how they locked the town gates on Sunday and forbade driving and shopping (and how they’d probably outlaw breathing if they could get away with it). Those bans were ruled unconstitutional in 1979, but the town of Ocean Grove still hasn’t learned its lesson. This past Labor Day weekend the whole place—one square mile—was buzzing about its newest controversy. It was the first conversation I overheard on the boardwalk.
. . .
I knew immediately that he was referring to the two lesbian couples who wanted to have their civil union ceremonies in the boardwalk pavilion and whose requests were denied by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, the Methodist group that founded the summer retreat in 1869. They own the pavilion, which is used for worship services and other activities, including the weddings of straight couples.
. . .
Politeness reigns in Ocean Grove, and politeness kept things friendly and civil for years between the Methodists and the gay and lesbian home and business owners who helped revive the decaying Victorian resort. … We stupidly thought the town was a risky investment. But the climate changed dramatically in the 1990s, and then whenever we visited, we noticed more and more gays and lesbians. Now we seem to be everywhere.
. . .
… When I saw that the Reverend Dr. James Forbes from New York’s Riverside Church was preaching, my friends and I decided to attend. …
Since I knew Riverside was famously liberal, I prayed the visiting minister would address the conflict. Even though he was not on his home turf, the Reverend Forbes got right into it and said, “So, I’ve been reading in The New York Times about some trouble here in Ocean Grove.” I elbowed my friend. “Everyone is God’s children,” he continued, “and that includes gays and lesbians.”
“Yes,” I said aloud, and started to clap along with about 50 other people in a room with about 500 worshipers. …
See also:
Gays only welcome if they know their place
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Marriage Equality,
Methodists,
New Jersey
September 10, 2007
From Gay.com:
New Jersey’s governor this weekend vowed to sign a marriage equality bill but said he would not seek one in an election year, while California’s governor did get such a bill but kept quiet about it as he exhorted fellow Republicans toward centrism.
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine on Sunday called same-sex marriage in his state inevitable, but said it “won’t be on my agenda” until after the 2008 presidential election for fear it would be used as a wedge issue by the right wing, New York’s Gay City News reported.
“I don’t think I’d like to see this debated in a presidential election year,” the paper quoted Corzine, a Democrat, as telling members of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association at a gathering in Newark. … “I think we can move very quickly here, but I think we ought to do it in a way, by the way, that doesn’t cause setbacks everywhere else in the country,” Corzine said, “that doesn’t make it a tool for people who I believe start unjust wars or try to take away children’s health insurance or aren’t committed to enforcing hate crimes laws and all kinds of other things.”
Meanwhile, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last week was sent a marriage equality bill by the California Legislature, spoke over the weekend of the necessity of steering his Republican Party away from the right — but did not mention the marriage bill.
. . .
Over the weekend, Equality California mounted a petition drive urging Schwarzenegger to sign the marriage bill before the Oct. 14 deadline. People can also email the governor’s office at http://gov.ca.gov/interact or phone 916-445-2841. Schwarzenegger vetoed similar marriage legislation in 2005 and has indicated he will do so again.
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Category:
California,
Election 2008,
Marriage Equality,
New Jersey
June 25, 2007
School district regrets deleting gay kiss
A Newark city school district that ordered staffers to use markers to black out a picture of a male student kissing his boyfriend from all copies of a school yearbook now says it regrets the decision.
Superintendent Marion A. Bolden issued an apology to the student, Andre Jackson, according to a statement released by the district on Monday.
“The decision was based, in part, on misinformation that Mr. Jackson was not one of our students and our review simply focused on the suggestive nature of the photograph,” the district said.
“Superintendent Marion A. Bolden personally apologizes to Mr. Jackson and regrets and embarrassment and unwanted attention the matter has brought to him,” according to the statement.
The district said it would reissue an “un-redacted version” of the 2007 yearbook to any student of East Side High School who wants one.
See also:
Newark School Supe Orders Gay-Kiss Blackout. Literally.
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Category:
Education/Schools,
Free Speech,
New Jersey
June 22, 2007
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 No, this is not a picture of
Marion Bolden. But we think
it would be quite fitting on
Mr. Bolden’s office wall.
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Gay pair’s photo blacked out of yearbook
A photograph of an East Side High School student kissing his boyfriend was blacked out of every copy of the school’s yearbook by Newark school officials who decided it was inappropriate.
Andre Jackson said he never thought he would offend anyone when he bought a page in the yearbook and filled it with several photographs, including one of him kissing his boyfriend.
But Newark Superintendent of Schools Marion Bolden called the photograph “illicit” and ordered it blacked out of the $85 yearbook before it was distributed to students at a banquet for graduating seniors Thursday.
“It looked provocative,” she said. “If it was either heterosexual or gay, it should have been blacked out. It’s how they posed for the picture.”
Russell Garris, the assistant superintendent who oversees the city’s high schools, brought the photograph to Bolden’s attention Thursday afternoon. He was concerned the picture would be controversial and upsetting to parents, Bolden said.
There are several photos of heterosexual couples kissing in the yearbook, but the superintendent said she didn’t review the entire yearbook and was presented only with Jackson’s page.
Funny, but we don’t believe this line: “If it was either heterosexual or gay, it should have been blacked out.” Rrrrrrrright. 
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