Brom decided not to allow any of the 98 Roman Catholic churches in San Diego or Imperial counties to hold services for Club Montage owner John McCusker Jr. because the diocese deemed his business "inconsistent with Catholic moral teaching."

McCusker, 31, died March 13 of congestive heart failure while vacationing in Mammoth. More than 500 people attended funeral services on Friday at St. Paul's Cathedral, an Episcopal church.

Members of San Diego's gay and lesbian community, outraged that McCusker was denied a Catholic funeral, will meet tonight to discuss ways of responding to Brom's decision. Protests at the diocese office or at local churches is one option, organizers said.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of San Diego, 3909 Centre Street.

In addition, the leadership of Dignity USA, a group made up of gay and lesbian Catholics based in Washington, D.C., is calling on Brom to apologize to McCusker's family.

McCusker's family, said to comprise devout Catholics, planned a funeral at the Immaculata Catholic Church on the campus of the University of San Diego, where McCusker attended school. But Brom nixed the idea.

During the weekend, diocese officials released a statement saying that pornography was filmed at McCusker's popular Club Montage, which caters to a straight crowd on Fridays and a gay clientele on Saturdays. Diocese officials also said that gay porn stars made appearances at a North Park bar called ReBar, which was also owned by McCusker.

Club Montage is closed five days of the week and the space is usually rented out to private groups, McCusker's former business partner, Michael Mack, told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

"As far as what was filmed there, we had nothing to do with the filming or production," Mack told the newspaper.

A notice on the Club Montage Web site announced that "sadly and regretfully Club Montage is closed indefinitely."

Brom's move is allowed under a rarely used provision in Catholic canon law usually reserved for the gravest of sinners, according to the Rev. John J. Coughlin, an internationally respected professor of canon law at the University of Notre Dame.

"Bishops usually refuse a funeral to someone if it would cause mass scandal within the church," Coughlin said. "This is something usually reserved for organized crime figures. I've never heard it applied to the owner of a gay club. Denying someone a Catholic funeral is rarely ever done."

Coughlin said the move is discretionary, but it would have to be taken by a bishop "for a very notorious reason."

"The bishop must also consider whether the person reconciled with God before their death," Coughlin said. "But it is sometimes difficult to determine a man's relationship with God in the moments before his death."