He could, but my best guess is that he won’t take action as long as the licenses are being issued. Eventually the “problem” will probably be solved by the legislature, hopefully in a way that won’t require the federal courts to get involved again.
It depends on how he regards flagrant defiance of a judicial order. Ordering one’s employees to violate the law puts the employees in a difficult position. The judge might not like that.
“I had some classmates at Harvard Law School I didn’t think were very bright, but Cruz takes the cake – unless he doesn’t really believe the things he says.”
Everybody I knew at Harvard Law who graduated in the top 10% of the class, held a Law Review board position, and clerked on the Supreme Court was really freaking bright. That’s what Ted Cruz did. So I don’t know what goes on in his head, but we can’t explain any of his behavior by saying he’s not smart enough to understand.
What? A politician dumbing himself down to be accepted by ignorant masses? Unheard of!
Cruz isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Very few important people will call him out on his wrongness and he’s pandering to that group that thinks their Christian privilege is under attack. And he’s doing a good job of it.
It’s clear that Ted Cruz is extremely, exceptionally, world-class good at taking a conclusion and making persuasive arguments to support the conclusion. That’s what debaters do-- he was a top debater-- and that’s what litigators do. It’s a good skill for politicians to have.
However, people who are interested in making policy, rather than doing politics, need to be able to evaluate evidence and follow it where it leads. I’ve seen no evidence that Cruz can do that.
I actually just saw a great (and appropriate) quote from Emerson about this faux-persecution thing that’s going on in Kentucky: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
Wonderful quote, Scout!!!
I wonder how the sides would differ if the clerk in question were Muslim?
My guess…The religious right would be up in arms about the flagrant breaking of a law on the books and how this is obviously leading to a ‘takeover’ by ‘them’. How this will lead to all sorts of horrible other accommodations in the name of Sharia law.
The Liberal Left on the other hand would be in utmost support of the clerk because it is just and extension of other religious exemptions given the those crazy religious right folks. They would demand the jail provide appropriate accommodations for the female clerk who could obviously not be processed by an males since this would violate religious principles.
Either way, news sources would gather clicks and advertising revenue, the politicians would have a stable soap box upon which to pontificate the appropriately tailored response and lawyers would gather to profit…which is really what it’s all about. :((
What is the underlying principle that you think ought to be adopted, dietz199?
The law now says that “reasonable” accommodations ought to be offered to employees who have an objection to performing part of their job. I’d get rid of that entirely-- if your religion says you can’t serve alcohol, or issue marriage licenses to gay people, or remove your headscarf for work, then find a job that accommodates your religious beliefs.
I’d still have prisons accommodate religion, though, because one can’t opt out of prison. Providing places to wash hands before prayer, or chaplains and so forth, probably helps rehabilitate prisoners more than it hurts, so I’m in favor of it.
The deputy clerk in KY, Brian Mason, says he will not let Kim Davis interfere because he is bound to obey the federal court order. From a story on Kentucky.com: “And if Davis tells him to stop after she returns to work, Mason said, he’ll tell her he can’t obey her, and instead must follow a federal judge’s order to continue issuing licenses to anyone who is legally eligible to receive them.”
What reasonable is has two main factors:
- money - can’t be a ridiculous amount of money compared to the ability of the company to pay (someone in a wheelchair in prison might need to be transferred to get proper care, even if the other prison is further from their loved ones)
- inherently changing the nature of the company or job or school or prison (etc.)
To refuse to give a marriage license to someone who is entitled to one under law is inherently changing the nature of her job. Therefore, the accommodation is not reasonable.
You can look at it the other way too - does a person have a right to be married by the county clerk and not an assistant county clerk? In a random case, let’s say the clerk was out sick, the assistant might offer to give a license to a couple, but the couple could say “no, we’ll come back tomorrow and be married by the clerk”. That’s up to them I guess. But a gay couple could not do that in this case.
The issue in the Kim Davis case is not conducting marriages, but issuing licenses. County clerks in Kentucky issue marriage licenses; then the couple gives the license to whoever is celebrating the marriage, and that person actually conducts the marriage ceremony. Kim Davis refused to issue licenses or let anyone else in her office issue licenses.
Moreover, Davis sued to prevent any county clerk in any county in Kentucky from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, on the flimsy basis that some county clerks might have religious scruples. She was saying that her religious beliefs ought to be pandered to accommodated by preventing any gay or lesbian couple in Kentucky from getting a license to marry, which is obviously preposterous on its face.
Not to nitpick, but the county clerk in this case isn’t marrying anyone. The office issues the license. The clerk’s job is to verify that the people applying for a license are legally entitled to the license, and if so, to give it to them.
And if say there is no right to have her issue the license rather than an assistant. Anymore than I have a right to have s particular employee, or one of a certain level, of a certain level serve me at any government office.
There’s no right to have one particular employee issue licenses, but there is a right to have all couples treated the same when applying for licenses. Just like if I went to a government office to get a hunting license and an elk tag, it would be perfectly all right for me to be told, “Down the hall and to the left, Suzy handles that,” but it wouldn’t be allowable for me to be shunted off to Suzy who only works one day a week and isn’t there when I show up, while a man is able to get hunting licenses from misogynist clerks who won’t serve me.
@“Cardinal Fang” I agree with your POV that religious accommodations should simply be removed from job descriptions.
However…
Is not quite correct. One ALWAYS has the option to opt out of prison by not partaking in illegal behavior.
I’m not really that sympathetic to Ms. Davis. In fact, not at all. However, since she accepted the position before this change, I think she should be grandfathered in until the next election. After that, either don’t run again or comply.
She doesn’t have a position that can be “grandfathered” in. She is defying a Supreme Court ruling that same sex couples are entitled to equal marriage rights under the law. The Supreme Court is the final “decider” of what’s Constitutional. The fact that the ruling came down after she took office shouldn’t affect its applicability to her right now. She took an oath to uphold the Constitution which is a living document always subject to the interpretation of the Justices on the Court. Same sex couples shouldn’t have to wait for a clerk to leave office to exercise their Constitutional rights.
The most amazing thing about this case is that she is not the best example of someone “living in the faith” at all times. She should get busy finding a way to “grandfather in” her current marriage while her 3 ex husbands are still living.
Well I disagree. I think she should keep her job and not sign any marriage licenses until a new election is called. She should not impede anyone in her office from completing the task, but her signature should not be on any licenses going forward. You are free to agree or disagree as you see fit. I don’t believe that we all have to agree on a message board.
Actually, the remedy is that she could resign, not that she could be allowed to ignore the law. No matter what, though, in this case, grandfathering her in doesn’t work, since the requirements of her job have not changed—the SCOTUS decision, since it’s the arbiter of what the Constitution means, says that the requirements of the Constitution have always (as in, since the approval of the amendment the majority based their reasoning on) required that marriage licenses be issued to any couple of legal age regardless of the sex of the participants, but that it wasn’t fully understood to mean that until the decision was handed down. Therefore, there;s no penalty for actions taken contrary to the Constitution before the decision was handed down, but once the decision was handed down there are.
There’s a judge in Oregon who has stopped performing marriages since the Supreme Court ruling. There was a judge in Texas who stopped performing marriages as a protest against the fact that (at the time) same sex marriage was illegal.
We had clerks in San Francisco who gave out same sex marriage licenses when it was against the law. They were not prosecuted for doing what at the time was illegal. Now we have…(you get the drift).