c. 2008 Religion News Service

State panel urges same-sex marriage for New Jersey

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) New Jersey should enact a law allowing gay marriage and waste no time passing it because the state’s civil unions law fails to adequately protect same-sex couples, a report to be released Wednesday (Dec. 10) said.

The final report of the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission says it gathered “overwhelming evidence” that the civil union law not only fails to provide the same protections as marriage, it also has created economic, medical and emotional hardships for gay couples.

The state panel concluded that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is as unjust as government imposing racial segregation laws against African-Americans.

“Separate treatment was wrong then and it is just as wrong now,” said the report.

The 79-page report is the work of a 13-member panel created to evaluate the impact of the 2006 civil union law, which was supposed to provide the rights and responsibilities of marriage under another name. It will be forwarded to Gov. Jon Corzine and state lawmakers.

“The report is a sweeping indictment of the failure of the civil union law,” said commission vice chairman Steven Goldstein, head of Garden State Equality, which is campaigning to legalize same-sex marriage. “The report asks Governor Corzine and the Legislature: Do you want equality or not? If so, there is only one way to go.”

About 3,353 couples have entered into civil unions, according to Goldstein. He said his organization has received 1,502 complaints about civil unions.

Corzine could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. He has said previously he would sign a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, but wanted to deal with the issue after the November presidential election so a possible backlash would not be exploited by conservatives for political gain.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, a Democrat, said the report “should spark a renewed sense of purpose and urgency to overcoming one of society’s last remaining barriers to full equality for all residents. As I have said many times before, same-sex marriage in New Jersey is only a matter of `when,’ not `if.”’

John Tomicki, president of the New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage and a leading opponent of gay marriage, pledged to make it an issue in next year’s state elections.

Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only states that issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California did until last month, when voters approved a proposition outlawing same-sex marriage.

The commission’s interim report in February found civil unions are “not clear to the general public” and confer “second-class status” on the couples who form them.

Three months ago, representatives of the state’s Catholic bishops, the Knights of Columbus and other groups held a press conference to denounce the commission as biased, and demanded that it be scrapped and reconstituted.

_ Susan K. Livio and Claire Heininger

Calif. bishops reach out to gays in wake of Prop 8

(RNS) California’s top Catholic clerics are trying to sooth hard feelings over the recent passage of the state’s gay marriage ban, explaining the church’s support for the measure while attempting to assure gays and lesbians that they are “cherished members of the church.”

“The passage of Proposition 8 in the state of California does not diminish in any way the importance of you, our homosexual brothers and sisters in the church,” wrote Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony in an open letter published last week (Dec. 5) in “The Tidings,” the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The letter was signed by Mahony and six auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese.

On Nov. 5, a slim majority of Californians voted for Proposition 8, which amends the state constitution by defining marriages as the union of a woman and a man. Gay rights activists continue to fight the referendum in court, and many have expressed anger at the Catholic Church and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of which strongly advocated for the proposition.

Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco also published an open letter recently, defending the rights of religious leaders to participate in civil debates and calling for a cease fire in personal attacks.

“We need to stop talking as if we are experts on the real motives of people with whom we have never even spoken,” Niederauer wrote. “We need to stop hurling names like `bigot’ and `pervert’ at each other. And we need to stop it now.”

Mahony and Niederauer said their support for Proposition 8 was intended to preserve the traditional definition of marriage, not harm gays or lesbians.

“Your intrinsic value as human beings and as brothers and sisters continues without change,” Mahony wrote. “If we had ever thought that the intent of this proposition was to harm you or anyone in the state of California, we would not have supported it.”

_ Daniel Burke

Orthodox Jews torn on ethical aspects of kosher foods

NEW YORK (RNS) Struggling with a kosher meat industry labor scandal that won’t go away, Orthodox Jews have begun publicly debating what role _ if any _ ethical standards should have on their eating habits.

At a panel discussion Tuesday (Dec. 9) at Yeshiva University, four scholars presented a range of responses to accusations of illegal and underage labor used at Agriprocessors, an Iowa-based plant that produced about half of the country’s kosher meat and poultry.

Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy in November; former CEO Sholom Rubashkin is in jail, awaiting trial on labor and bank fraud charges.

Orthodox Jews make up less than one-fifth of American Jews, but are the majority of those who keep kosher. Over the past year, many have balked at calls for boycotts against accused companies; Orthodox rabbis say they must ensure kosher food remains affordable and available, and don’t want to act prematurely if a major supplier has not been proven guilty.

Regardless of the claims against Agriprocessors, some rabbis continue to maintain that kosher certification has nothing to do with a company’s labor practices. Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, compared workplace ethics and kosher laws to the relationship between personal hygiene and poetry.

“A great poet might opt to not shower,” Shafran said, “but that bad habit doesn’t necessarily affect the quality of his writing.”

In contrast, Shmuly Yanklowitz, co-founder of Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox Jewish social justice group, said visiting the terrified Agriprocessors workers earlier this year convinced him that fair treatment of workers must be a priority in kosher food production.

“Where is our moral courage?” he asked. “We’re fighting for the soul of the Jewish people.”

For now, most seem to cling to a middle ground, represented by Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of kosher supervision for the Orthodox Union, and Rabbi Basil Herring, head of the orthodox Rabbinical Council of America.

While agreeing that dietary laws do not technically include labor principles, and that government agencies are better equipped to investigate companies than a system proposed by the Conservative movement, they concluded that kosher certifying agencies should include some workplace stipulations in their contracts _ if only to reclaim the perception that their food adheres to a higher standard.

“We have to act with due consideration, we have to always put the ethical and moral at the top of our agenda but to do so in a way that brings about, rather than defeats, the goals that we need to achieve,” Herring said.

_ Nicole Neroulias

Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane of Washington

(RNS) “We face our share of problems in the Episcopal Church, but wholesale defections to a movement committed to denying gay and lesbian Christians the birthright of their baptism is not one of them.”

_ Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane of Washington, writing a letter to clergy and congregations of the diocese about conservatives’ proposal of a new Anglican province last week (Dec. 3).

KRE/DSB END RNS