
This photo by Michael Badger shows the side to side beach closure at Asbury to keep those without Sea.Hear.Now tickets from coming across. This is undoubtedly unconstitutional, but irrelevant to the OG Sunday closures issue. From Asbury Patch. 9/22/23.
By Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net. 9/22/23 Ocean Grove. Our OG presses have been held for this article.
The Asbury Patch is a local internet based news source which has honed in to Ocean Grove for some of its recent news stories, but it should first do its homework and learn something about our town.
Most recently it has focused on the Sunday beach closure issue, and today it reports with this headline:
“Ocean Grove ‘Singled Out’ By State for Sunday Beach Closure, Church Says.”
And this is their opening:
“The president of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association said he thinks the town is a victim of religious persecution from the state of New Jersey, after the state Department of Environmental Protection sent a violation notice to Ocean Grove last week for keeping beaches closed on Sunday mornings during the summer.
“It seems as though the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, with its religious heritage, is being treated differently than other private and municipal beaches on the Jersey Shore,” said Camp Meeting Association president Michael Badger.”
Let’s first clear the air with some facts:
a. The CMA is not a “church.”
b. Ocean Grove is a town not the name of the group which operate our beaches. The state of NJ DEP has gone after the OG Camp Meeting Association, not the town of Ocean Grove.
At Blogfinger we have complained about the intentional misuse of those names by the CMA which often refers to itself as “Ocean Grove” instead of consistently referring to itself as the Camp Meeting. This confusion of names should be irritating to the diverse citizenry of OG which can do without having its town lumped together with the CMA and all its trials and tribulations.
The Patch is like all the other media that betrays an ignorance about the Grove, its issues, its history, and its very name. For example they all think that morning beach closures are historic, but until 1980, Sunday closures were all day–quite a difference.
c. You can go to the Asbury Patch.com to read their entire piece but evidently Michael Badger came up with his charge of discrimination by pointing to other situations of beach closures in NJ such as the recent Pt. Pleasant closure which was done temporarily to save lives during dangerous tidal conditions and when the Sea, Hear, Now concerts last weekend over two days shut down lateral movement of beach walkers–a practice which we criticized in the past, and the night-time closure of Sandy Hook.
Each of those examples are different, and Badger can’t justify his beach policies by pointing to “bad behavior” by others.
d. It’s ironic that the CMA, which was found guilty of discrimination on our boardwalk in 2007 by the State, now finds itself falsely accusing the state of NJ of “persecution.” At Blogfinger we are not a fan of any beach closures, and we have written many posts about this, but religious persecution is a serious charge which cannot be tossed around trivially. Was Badger having a badger day when he passed this on to some rookie reporter from the Patch? Surely he can’t believe that. He has zero evidence.
e. Also from the Patch piece: “Ocean Grove began, and continues to this day, as a Methodist summer seaside retreat. The Camp Meeting Association, which is a Christian 501(c)3 non-profit, owns all the land in Ocean Grove, and also owns the beach”.
Ugh! How come we all know that Ocean Grove does not “continue to this day as a Methodist summer seaside retreat?” You could say that the CMA runs summer programs under the heading of a “summer retreat” but the town of Ocean Grove has nothing to do with that. This reporter should go back to journalism school where she could be learning wokism and political advocacy. She should take a graduate course in reporting fact-based accuracy.
f. The article say: “Badger said Ocean Grove does this for two reasons, one religious and the other being quality of life.”
Did Badger really say that the Sunday closure is for religious reasons? If he says it now, it is to try and justify his claim that there is some sort of “religious persecution” going on.
g. The reporter tried to drag the ancient Romans into this discussion quoting the Public Trust Doctrine which is about much broader concerns than what the DEP is specifically about now.
h. One item which the reporter includes having to do with Public Trust Doctrine which I think does shed some light on the variety of closures alleged by Badger:
“There are circumstances under which public access may be restricted or denied. These include restrictions that are necessary to protect public health and safety, and for which municipalities, through the exercise of their police powers, can adopt ordinances to address such circumstances”
PATSY CLINE: