Clergy may opt not to preside at N.J. gay civil unions

Clergy may opt not to preside at N.J. gay civil unions

NEWARK, N.J. — Members of the clergy, unlike mayors and other public officials who perform marriages, cannot be legally required to preside at ceremonies for same-sex civil unions, the New Jersey attorney general’s office said Jan. 11.

The issue stems from a new law that allows civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. The unions convey all rights of married couples except for use of the word “marriage.”

The attorney general’s office had previously said mayors, deputy mayors, judges and township committee chairs who make themselves “available generally” to perform marriages also must be “available generally” to preside at ceremonies for civil unions, or they would be violating the state’s discrimination law.

But the law is not meant to apply to clergy, according to the seven-page advisory opinion by Attorney General Stuart Rabner. Religious figures are not public officials in the legal sense, the advisory says, and their refusal to perform civil unions does not make the arrangement less available to people.

(TAB)