CLERGY CAN SAY NO TO GAY UNIONS

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/12/07

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BY GREGORY J. VOLPE
GANNETT STATE BUREAU

TRENTON — As expected, Attorney General Stuart Rabner announced Thursday that clergy, unlike government officials who regularly conduct marriages, do not have to perform civil unions for gay couples.

In a letter to the state's registrar of vital statistics, Rabner said the state's anti-discrimination law does not apply to clergy whose religious beliefs prevent them from uniting two people of the same sex.

"I'm grateful for this opinion," said Moshe Zev Weisberg, an Orthodox rabbi in Lakewood. "It's sort of a red line in the sand for us; we wouldn't have performed them anyway."

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