VINELAND, N.J. (AP) – In a pew of the Chestnut Assembly of God on a Tuesday night, Pat Mannion decided that, for the first time in her 58 years, she would get involved in politics. She would call lawmakers and tell neighbors about her cause: Keeping New Jersey from becoming the next state to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples.

Louise Walpin and Marsha Shapiro, who also never thought of themselves as activists, made a similar decision about two years ago. They have been talking with legislators about why they believe the state should recognize them as a married couple.

The women have joined the movements as the debate over same-sex unions in New Jersey goes from the philosophical to the practical, and from the courts to the Legislature.

Both sides – those who say they want to “protect marriage” as it is, and those who call for “marriage equality” – are recruiting and mobilizing volunteers to pressure lawmakers.

A bill that would allow same-sex marriage is expected to be debated in Trenton during the lame-duck period between the Nov. 3 election and start of a new legislative session in January.

In the fall, there probably will be television and radio ads on the issue. But for now, the focus is mostly on the faithful speaking to their representatives in Trenton.

In 2006, the state Supreme Court said that committed same-sex couples deserved the same treatment as straight married couples. The Legislature responded by making New Jersey the third state to offer civil unions, which give the same legal benefits the state offers to married couples, but not the title of marriage.

That didn’t settle the issue.

As couples first entered into civil unions in February 2007, Garden State Equality chair Steven Goldstein vowed that within two years, his group would persuade lawmakers and the governor to do what no other state had done – pass a law recognizing same-sex marriage.

Then, only Massachusetts allowed same-sex marriages, and that was because of a court ruling, not a law.

Goldstein did not meet his deadline, and New Jersey will not be the first state to recognize the marriages under a law.

Earlier this year, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont passed laws to recognize same-sex marriage. All of them are to take effect between September and Jan. 1, though Maine’s is being challenged in a constitutional amendment expected to go to a public vote in November.

Goldstein’s organization, founded in 2004, now has a full-time staff of eight in four offices around the state, along with hundreds of volunteers, a growing number of whom are heterosexual, he says.

Walpin and Shapiro have been a couple for 20 years and were married by a rabbi 17 years ago. Walpin said she believed that when they joined in a legally recognized civil union in 2007, they would get the same legal benefit as married couples.

The key issue for them was health insurance. Two of the couple’s four children – a son who died at 20 last year – had serious and costly disabilities.

Walpin, a nurse, said that when she was looking for a job, she found that some employers, apparently flouting the law, would not offer insurance to employees’ partners.

“If I were to take a position without health benefits, essentially, I’m being paid less than my heterosexually married colleague,” she said.

She said she believes companies would respect their relationship if it were called marriage.

Opponents of same-sex marriage say that allowing it would amount to special rights for a relative small group of people.

Across the nation, voters have constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage in 30 states. The amendments have passed in every state where they’ve been on the ballot.

Social conservatives have been trying for years to get such an amendment on New Jersey’s ballot.