Shortly after civil unions were Okayed in New Jersey this year, a committee called the Civil Union Review Commission was birthed. The commission has launched its first of three bi-weekly meetings to hear complaints that civil unions are a “failed experiment” and carry a “second class status.” Bruce Hausknecht with Focus on the Family Action says that’s what it was created to do.

“The net effect of that law was simply to create a vehicle by which homosexual activists could run a dog and pony show essentially to force the legislatures hand to create same-sex marriages, rather than civil unions.”

Len Deo of the New Jersey Family Policy Council says the commission strategically placed its pawns.

“Steven Goldstein is the head of Garden State Equality, which is the leading homosexual rights activist group in New Jersey. On top of that, he’s also the vice chairman of the Civil Unions Commission, which is basically the wolf watching the hen house.”

The commission is expected to present its findings to lawmakers to justify a bill allowing same-sex marriage. John White with the Knights of Columbus says that was the ploy all along.

“They haven’t been satisfied with domestic partnerships. That was supposed to be all they wanted. The next thing they wanted was civil unions; they got civil unions, and now that’s not enough.”

Family groups are pushing for an amendment to the state constitution that would ban gay marriage.