Clergy in New Jersey cannot be required to unite gay couples in civil unions, the state attorney general announced January 11. Attorney General Stuart Rabner’s legal opinion came less than a month after the state became the third to offer gay couples civil unions. The unions give the legal benefits of marriage, but not the title. Couples may begin applying for licenses on Feb. 19 and can be united 72 hours later. Under the law, all the same people who perform marriages among them clergy, judges, mayors and other local officials can preside over civil union ceremonies. Some opponents of civil unions said they feared the law would give gay rights activists the ability to sue to force clergy to perform the ceremonies. Patrick R. Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference said Thursday that he had feared Catholic clergy could be accused of hate crimes when they deny requests to perform civil union ceremonies. Rabner’s opinion puts that to rest, he said. In another opinion issued last month, Rabner said that mayors and other non-clergy who regularly perform marriages cannot turn down gay couples who ask to have civil unions performed. Those officials, he said, will have to perform the unions or stop doing all weddings. To perform any marriage requested but then turn down civil unions would be a violation of the anti-discrimination law, he said.