(TRENTON) The Civil Union Review Commission (CURC) – appointed with pro-same-sex “marriage” advocates – having issued their final report 18 months before their appointed time have short changed the public as they short changed the review process and took what should have been a comprehensive review of the civil union law and turned the process instead into a report filled with inaccuracies and false claims. The end result of the CURC’s disregard and distortion of the facts is that marriage may be radically redefined in New Jersey. We could not sit idly by and let this process not go unchallenged. 

• Every public member of the Commission is either a gay rights supporter or advocate, a member of a gay rights group and/or an award recipient from a gay rights advocacy group.  
• The Commission Chairman, J.Frank Vespa-Papaleo, Esq., received a visionary award from the most active organization advocating for same sex marriage in New Jersey.
• After only one public hearing The Commission Chairman stated on the record that civil unions are not working and that marriage would be a better way to affirm the rights of gay and lesbian committed couples. The Commission is supposed to study the issue for three years before making its final conclusions.
• The Commission Vice Chair, Steven Goldstein, Esq., chairs the state’s largest gay rights advocacy group and continues to lobby legislators to pass same sex marriage legislation- a conflict with his Commission responsibilities. The process and staff conflicts of interest are glaringly obvious.

“While we believe in the principle of Commissions being formed to study certain issues on behalf of the Legislature, the CURC has indeed overstepped its bounds, had become an advocacy organization for redefining marriage, and sought to minimize the voice of people who would likely disagree with the “goal” of the CURC,” stated Demetrios Stratis, Chairman of the New Jersey Legal Resource Council. “However, the report is replete with unsubstantiated complaints, some which claim that hospitals denied same-sex partners visitation in hospitals – an accusation which an official of the NJ Hospital Association insists is in error. This Commission has done the general population in New Jersey a great disservice by wasting taxpayer time and money to move their own political agenda.” Stratis continued. 

“In addition the Commissioners disregarded testimony from many State Department heads who stated that the implementation of Civil Unions had gone fine and very few problems were reported. The Commission even ignored the District Attorney’s General’s advice and left unsupported allegations in its first interim report. Therefore we call for an investigation by federal and state officials into the actions of CURC,” Stratis concluded.

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