New Jersey finally stops Christians from blocking access to a public beach on Sunday mornings

After years of litigation, the state shut down Ocean Grove’s attempt to turn a public shoreline into a religious privilege

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Christians in New Jersey will no longer be allowed to block access to a public beach on Sunday mornings, after the state’s Department of Environmental Protection issued its final ruling in a case that’s been dragging on for years.

The case involves a Methodist group that manages the beach in Ocean Grove. They’ve spent years openly proclaiming their religious intentions for the property—to the point that they installed a cross-shaped pier in 2023:

The cross-shaped pier in Ocean Grove, NJ (screenshot via YouTube)

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA) never hid its religious affiliations. The group says the area was “founded as a Christian seaside resort” and has a mission befitting that description:

The mission of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, rooted in Wesleyan-Holiness theological heritage, is to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth, and renewal through worship, educational, cultural, and recreational programs for persons of all ages in a Christian seaside setting.

Their goal is to help all generations “know and grow in Jesus.”

How did they get control of this space? NJ.com said it was the result of a charter offered by the community:

Ocean Grove, referred to as God’s Square Mile by some of its residents, has about 3,000 residents. Though it is only a small section of Neptune Township, it has a unique charter that allows it to set some of its own rules under the Camp Meeting Association.

The Ocean Grove Meeting Association was sued in 2007 when it barred same-sex couples from using its boardwalk pavilion for civil union ceremonies. A judge later ruled that ban violated the state’s anti-discrimination law.

(In response to that judge’s decision, the OGCMA decided no one could have any weddings on the boardwalk. Because if conservative Christians can’t get what they want, everyone must be punished.)

Those special rules, however, are what gave them the ability to construct the $2 million Christian pier that opened in April of 2023. The original one was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy over a decade ago, so they jumped at the opportunity to inject some Christian Nationalism into the pier’s replacement. Ironically, however, they had to close down the “cross” part of the pier in December of 2023 due to problems with its “structural integrity.” (How’s that for symbolism?)

But even without the pier, it’s not like Christianity wasn’t front and center everywhere else:

Christian symbols can be found all around Ocean Grove. On the beach, a Christian flag flies beside the U.S. flag. Beach badges sold by the Camp Meeting Association include a cross, beach umbrellas available for rent are decorated with cross icons and there’s a cross mounted on the dunes at the beach.

The message has always been clear: Jews and atheists and Muslims are not wanted in this part of the state. They can visit, sure, but the people running the show want them to know this is a Christian area where church/state separation doesn’t apply.

The cross-shaped pier in Ocean Grove, NJ (screenshot via YouTube)

But the controversy we’re talking about now involves access to the beach.

Since 2011, between Memorial Day in May and Labor Day in September—a total of 15 weeks—access to the beach before noon on Sundays is restricted. During those closed-off hours, the OGCMA doesn’t sell beach tags to access the space and they don’t have lifeguards on duty.

But those hours are precisely when families looking for a summer getaway might want to come set up shop for a day at the beach.

This is seriously what the rules looked like as recently as 2023:

In fact, during those few hours on Sunday morning, Ocean Grove’s entrances to the half-mile of beach were barricaded with chains and padlocks.

That was a problem for the state. In an letter to the OGCMA dated August 10, 2023 from the Bureau of Coastal and Land Use Compliance and Enforcement, Regional Supervisor Robert H. Clark said the barriers prevented people from accessing the beach during daylight hours, violating state law.

The OGCMA responded that there was a perfectly good secular reason for preventing people from visiting the beach: It was too beautiful to be sullied by the presence of humans:

“The outcome of the step closure enhances religious and secular quality of life experiences in Ocean Grove which society recognizes as valuable. During this 0.5% of the year, the view of the ocean from the OGCMA’s boardwalk and pier is of sublime natural beauty without the visual elements of beach umbrellas, tents, and masses of people,” Badger wrote in a response to state Department of Environmental Protection provided Friday to NJ Advance Media.

See? It was just a coincidence that the natural beauty needed to be preserved during the busiest swimming days of the year… and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Sunday mornings are typically when churches hold services.

To be clear, people could still access the space if they wanted to. But they would have to jump the barriers or access the beach from a different entrance down the coastline, at least half a mile away. But the nine entrances to the Ocean Grove section of the beach were closed during those morning hours. To put it another way, this wasn’t just an inconvenience for some people; it made the beach nearly impossible to visit for people who might be in wheelchairs or had other physical disabilities.

You might be wondering: How did this group ever acquire this much power? Arguably because they funded everything themselves, creating a much more complicated argument for those trying to put a stop to it. When reporter Daysi Calavia-Robertson wrote about the arrangement in May of 2023, she explained how the OGCMA paid for its dominance to the point where its inclusive rhetoric didn’t have to match its actions:

That’s no doubt because of all the Camp Meeting does for the town that would normally be paid for through taxes. It fundraised and paid for the new $2 million pier. It provides year-round recreational programs and events. It’s also in charge of collecting the beach badge revenue — money it’s required to spend on maintaining the beach — and a nominal annual fee homeowners must pay to lease the land.

…

… no one – not a single person I spoke with – is suggesting [the OGCMA] shouldn’t be who they are and embrace their history and religion. All that’s being asked of them, all that people are pleading for, desperately, is that they also give other people the breadth to be who they are. But it seems to me that what the Camp Meeting says is all just lip service. I’d much prefer to see them show tolerance instead of just talking about it.

All of this finally changed in September of 2023 when the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a notice that the OGCMA was violating the conditions of its permit by blocking access to the beach on Sunday mornings. If they didn’t undo their blockade, they could have been on the hook for a fine of $25,000/day.

In response, the OGCMA complied and opened their beach to the public… but not without a fight. The two sides went back-and-forth in court over this issue and the battle continued through 2025. Finally, in late June, administrative law judge Tricia M. Caliguire issued a ruling that… the OGCMA could basically do whatever they wanted.

… Caliguire, the administrative law judge, sided with the Camp Meeting Association, saying its policy wasn’t unreasonable under the public trust doctrine. She noted the association allows access to fishermen and board users, and it doesn’t prevent the public from getting to the beach from Asbury Park or Bradley Beach.

“It is difficult to conclude that the OGCMA is unreasonably interfering with public access under circumstances where it limits use of its private beach by the general public for several hours only on Summer Sunday mornings,” Caliguire wrote.

It wasn’t unreasonable? Come on. Of course it was. When you have to take the long route because the short one is closed out of spite, it’s an unnecessary obstacle. Plus, the OGCMA wanted the public to honor its religious beliefs, which the public is under no obligation to do.

But that was seriously what Caliguire argued was reasonable:

The right of the general public to reach the water has always been honored by the OGCMA, which only asks that in return, its sincere interest in upholding the Sabbath be likewise honored and accommodated. It is difficult to conclude that the OGCMA is unreasonably interfering with public access under circumstances where it limits use of its private beach by the general public for several hours only on Summer Sunday mornings.

Those are not two equal but opposite requests. One of them demands access to public space in an expected and convenient way. The other refuses to grant that access because of personal religious mythology. Because of that, it can and should be ignored.

Thankfully, Caliguire’s ruling wasn’t the final word on the matter. DEP Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette had the option of accepting, modifying, or rejecting her decision.

And in late December, LaTourette issued his decision: Screw the earlier ruling, he said. The beach must remain open and accessible on Sunday mornings.

… I disagree with the Initial Decision. For centuries, the public trust doctrine has ensured the right of New Jerseyans to freely access tidal waters, which unquestionably includes the right to freely access the dry sand beach of adjacent shorelines… In short, State law requires that Department permittees, including OGCMA, provide public access to privately-owned beaches, and the Department is duty-bound to protect public access at every juncture. Furthermore, OGCMA has for decades accepted and enjoyed the benefit of substantial State investment in the nourishment of its privately-owned beach, which publicly funded projects are explicitly conditioned on the provision of public access.

In view of these rights and obligations, OGCMA’ s summer Sunday morning beach closures are an unjustifiable violation of the public’s right to access. Accordingly, and for the additional reasons set forth herein, I REVERSE the Initial Decision and UPHOLD the Administrative Order.

That’s the right move. While the OGCMA can still appeal the decision to a higher court, you have to wonder if they want to keep fighting this. After years of arguing for exclusion and religious privilege, they’re losing any respect they may have once had. Just look at how one local explained it:

"It's a quirky little town," said Barbara Burns, 74, who has lived in Ocean Grove for more than 20 years. "The beach is closed on Sunday morning. It's something that people lived with. And then we began to learn that this was not appropriate."

The longer the OGCMA fights this, the more their biggest supporters realize they can’t defend it.

Ultimately, what the OGCMA wanted to do was use religion as a weapon to deprive people of accessing space that’s technically theirs, all because they had historical roots there along with a checkbook.

The state was right to push back since the alternative would have created a dangerous precedent, allowing private groups to selectively deny public access to spaces based on their own faith-based rules. It would have been an invitation for exclusion elsewhere, justified by tradition or a group’s “sincerely held beliefs.”

Keep in mind that Commissioner LaTourette’s reversal doesn’t require OGCMA to renounce its faith, remove its symbols, or abandon its mission. They’re still allowed to manage the beach. But if they’re doing it, they still have to play by the same rules as everyone else. The inconvenience of keeping the beach open on Sunday mornings over the summer is nothing compared to the harm of allowing faith-based groups to create their own obstacles to that space based on religious tradition.

This outcome is a win-win for everyone. It makes clear that the beach belongs to the people who wants to access it—including people with disabilities and those who want to show up at 9:00am to secure space for that day without having to find an entrance further away. The OGCMA gets to maintain its control over the area, too. If they didn’t think the public would be inconvenienced by those blocked-off access points three hours a week, well, they shouldn’t be that upset that those chains now have to come down a few hours earlier either.

If they don’t like it, they can use that time to pray about it while everyone else has a great time at the beach.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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