The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association discriminated against two women when it refused to allow them to use its boardwalk pavilion for their civil union ceremony in 2007, the director of New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights has ruled.

The decision, issued Monday, upholds an administrative law judge ruling that was issued in January. The two women — Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster — are Ocean Grove residents who filed a complaint with the division. The American Civil Liberties Union represented Bernstein and Paster.

The rulings against the Camp Meeting Association found that the pavilion was open to other members of the public who used if for weddings, subject to availability, but the association declined Bernstein’s and Paster’s request for its use based on their sexual orientation. The ruling also cited the Camp Meeting’s use of a Green Acres tax exemption for the property as further evidence of the pavilion’s status as a “public accommodation”.

The Camp Meeting Association has since discontinued the use of the pavilion for weddings. Bernstein and Paster went ahead with their civil union ceremony elsewhere.

The Camp Meeting may appeal the division’s ruling to the appellate division of the superior court. The association, a Methodist group that owns the Ocean Grove boardwalk and auditorium, as well as other facilities used for religious purposes, claimed its First Amendment rights would be violated by forcing it to rent the pavilion to same-sex couples for civil union ceremonies.

Bernstein and Paster did not seek monetary damages against the Camp Meeting Association, and none were awarded. The division director also declined to assess penalties payable to the state, instead ruling that a declaration of wrongdoing by the Camp Meeting was sufficient redress.