New Jersey Family Policy Council

Demetrios (800)653-7204	9/25/2008

“Civil Unions Review Commission Needs To Be ReCommissioned!”

(TRENTON) The Civil Union Review Commission (CURC) – appointed with pro-same-sex “marriage” advocates – has issued a report claiming civil unions are not working and asking for marriage to be radically redefined. While the commissioners have not committed any crime, their aggressive push and wonton disregard for the facts before them makes the findings of the CURC suspect and dubious at best. The concern by many people that the end result of the CURC’s disregard and distortion of the facts is that marriage may be radically redefined in New Jersey. The following points show just how bias the commission’s makeup really is. 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, has become an advocacy organization for redefining marriage, and has 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. We call upon the Commissioners to resign, and for the CURC to be reorganized. In the meantime, the office of legislative services, the non-partisan group of the New Jersey legislature should be instructed to do an independent analysis.
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