NEPTUNE, N.J. — The state's leading gay-rights group wants to appeal a decision by state environmental officials stripping a Methodist church group of a tax exemption for part of the Ocean Grove boardwalk.

Garden State Equality says the decision by state Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson does not go far enough in penalizing the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association for refusing to let same-sex couples hold civil-union ceremonies in a boardwalk pavilion where heterosexual couples are allowed to wed.

The ruling was more symbolic than substantive: the actual tax impact to the church group is likely to be about $175 per year, according to the Neptune Township tax assessor.

Jackson determined that the church group violated the terms of a state program that grants tax breaks to private property owners who make their property available for public recreation. She removed the tax exemption for the pavilion, claiming the structure is not being made equally available to everyone, but let it remain for the rest of the boardwalk and beach, which is also owned by the association.

"We're looking for a bigger victory here," said Steve Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group. "We have the symbolic victory of the state telling Ocean Grove they're wrong, but there is a bigger victory to be had by having the entire tax exemption removed. We're happy, but there's a lot more happiness to be had."

He said Garden State Equality's lawyers are researching the most effective way to appeal the decision and seek a court ruling to remove the entire exemption.

But Scott Hoffman, chief administrative officer of the association, issued a statement saying that he believes Jackson's decision "re-certifies over 99 percent of the land" for the group's tax exemption, and said its attorneys are reviewing the decision.

Ocean Grove is a coastal section of Neptune Township where the real estate is owned by the church group and leased for 100 years to individual homeowners.

The splintered, weather-beaten pavilion with peeling paint is at the heart of a dispute between gay groups, who want the right to hold civil unions there, and the church group, which says the state is trying to force it to violate deeply held religious beliefs.

Same-sex civil unions are prohibited in church structures under the Methodist Church Book of Discipline and the church considers the pavilion to be such a structure. But many in Ocean Grove's gay community say the pavilion is public space.

Two lesbian couples who were denied permission to hold civil unions there filed complaints with the state Division of Civil Rights, which is pressing their case against the association. The association, in turn, filed a federal lawsuit against the state, saying the association's right to religious freedom would be violated by being forced to sanction same-sex unions.

In financial terms, Jackson's ruling will have little effect. Bernard Haney, Neptune's tax assessor, said if the pavilion and the 20-by-20-foot patch of land underneath it were to be taxed, the association's annual bill would be $175.

"The amount of money in salary that me and my staff would have to spend on figuring this out would probably come out to more than we'd take in taxes on this property over the next three years," he said.

"It's a gazebo," he said. "It's 100 years old. Maybe it's worth $8,000. The tax ramifications of this are negligible."

Plus, Haney said, the final decision on assessing the land is his. He said he would decide by Nov. 1 whether to accept Jackson's ruling "or do something else."