Haha, @stugace, that’s epic.
That’s how it was presented on our local news, but according to that quote, not the case. Which imo makes his exhortations even more irresponsible.
Interesting piece on the question of refusing to issue a license. Some good points in the reader Comments as well:
And u think tbe government isn’t constantly tinkering w the tax code?
It’s a little bit of a gray area whether one particular clerk in an office can refuse to grant a marriage license to a gay or lesbian couple, instead sending the couple over to the next desk to get the license from another clerk. It’s no gray area at all to have an entire office refuse to issue licenses to gay people; that is plainly illegal from now.
So if there is just one person in an office who handles this particular task, that person must issue licenses to couples who are legally entitled to marry, even if the person has religious scruples. And if they can’t or refuse to do their job, they should be fired and replaced with a person who is willing to do the work they’ve been hired to do.
Why is there an argument over whether clerks should refuse to hand out marriage license? It’s their job that they do to make money. Leave your beliefs at home. I’m fairly religious myself, but if I wasn’t as accepting as I am now, then I’d look for another job.
Funny enough, I don’t remember seeing anything about religion when I went to get my marriage license a few weeks ago. I swore that I was who I said I was and that everything I wrote was truthful to the best of my knowledge.
I wonder if it would go against their “religion” to give a license to an atheist like me. 8-|
Fascinating how there never seem to be any clerks who object to giving licenses to couples who are too old to procreate.
Who do these clerks think they are? They seem to be unaware that they are essentially human ATMs whose sole job is to process the paperwork they’ve been handed.
romani, this is a slippery slope in all kinds of ways. There are those who still believe that interracial marriage is biblically wrong, so may those couples be turned away because of religious scruples? What about an interfaith couple, or as you say, an atheist couple? What about couples who don’t want to, or can’t, have children? Don’t they violate the purpose of marriage, which as we all know is procreation?
What about other civil services? Can a firefighter refuse to put out a fire if he knows a married gay couple lives there? Can a teacher refuse to teach the child of a married gay couple? Can a county recording office refuse to record the house deed if it says “John and David, husband and husband?”
Public employees are agents of a jurisdiction, and as such, their personal feelings about anything are 100% irrelevant. Now, if it’s a large office and there are others willing to issue the license, an accommodation can perhaps be made for that employee. But if that’s not practical or possible, then the employee must do it. And if the employee cannot accept that, then it is the employee who must give way, not the taxpaying, constitutionally-protected citizen.
Exactly, PG. It’s such hypocrisy.
I saw something funny floating around Facebook earlier. I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was something along the lines of “Hello, I’ll be your pilot today. Unfortunately, I’m unable to fly the plane because I’m Amish. Please wait until we find a pilot whose religion allows this.” Crude, but effective IMO.
Right, that was the other thing, LM! Neither of us were required to take a fertility test or even ASKED if we wanted kids. I mean… gosh! Don’t they know the TRUE meaning of marriage.
(I say this just coming back from my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. They were different religions and both previously married when they were married by a JOP. The horror!)
More evidence that Scalia is losing it:
He’s been bullying the court into going along with him for years, and it’s not working quite so well any more, and like all bullies, he’s not handling it so well.
Yes; his oral rebuttal in that case – calling the dissents “gobbledygook” – was unusual, to say the least. Obviously a venerable legal term; I should go look it up in Black’s Law Dictionary.
The once-solid south is crumbling. There are still plenty of holdouts, to be sure, but nothing like the across-the-board resistance that was being threatened on Friday. It’s encouraging that there are a large number of individuals all over the south who’ve decided to ignore their bigoted governors and AGs, and are fulfilling their oaths and following the law.
Even in Texas, the top guys beat their chests while the people on the ground do their jobs: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20150629-benefits-to-be-extended-to-spouses-of-gay-state-of-texas-workers.ece
Just a reminder that it’s not just the south. Here in Michigan, we have one of the most conservative AGs in the country. He fought tooth and nail to keep marriage equality out of Michigan even after it was ruled constitutional by the state court. Only a handful of counties were open on ONE Saturday to issue licenses and marriage equality didn’t come back until last Friday.
He’s biting his tongue on this and accepting, IMO, only because our governor has made it clear that this is a non-issue. I’d bet my bottom dollar that his reaction would be different with a different gov.
I learned something with this I didn’t know (should have, but didn’t). With SC decisions, there is technically a 25 day period to allow the losing side to ask the court to ‘reconsider’ its decision (not likely to happen), so technically the marriage bans are still in place. I can’t think of a court decision that someone asked to be ‘reconsidered’, hence assuming it took effect right away.
There are some lessons to be learned from the response to this decision, there are clerks who are issuing the licenses who otherwise might be opposed because of the ruling and feeling it is there job, in the city areas most of the offices are defying the orders not to issue licenses, which means there are professionals out there who realize that their personal feelings don’t matter when it comes to the law.
I think a lot is going to shake out in the next several weeks, once the 25 day period passes and there is still resistance, then you will see the courts and the government acting. One of the tactics I am hearing about is clerks refusing to issue any marriage licenses, and they are saying it is legal because they aren’t discriminating, and even in Mississippi that won’t work, if there is a legal requirement that you need a marriage license to get married, clerks offices cannot refuse to administer licenses at all, and if they claim the first amendment they should be fired on the spot.
Interesting twist, musicprnt: “A petition for rehearing is not subject to oral argument and will not be granted except by a majority of the Court, at the instance of a Justice who concurred in the judgment or decision.”
Here’s the deal. Gays have the constitutional right to a marriage license, and they can only get that from a specific government entity. County clerks do not have a constitutional right to be a county clerk. They do have a right not to have their religion infringed on in the workplace, but they can get that by moving down the hall to the hunting license department. Or better yet, they can go out and get a job in the private sector. I thought these people believe that government is a pox on society. Why are they so eager to work there anyway?
Had a conversation with a co-worker about this. He’s a very pleasant fellow, Catholic and politically conservative, though has essentially liberal positions regarding civil rights. His exception is rights for Gays. We’ve gone back and forth in vigorous debates. Yesterday I more or less told him I had enough, because he and nitwit politicians like Bobby Jindal were becoming indistinguishable from Strom Thurmond and Bull Connor circa 1962! Really, I can’t see a difference between the Segregationists of yore and the angry anti-gay marriage adherents today.
Can’t these pols see the resentment that they are stirring? Whenever I have seen video of someone saying "We don’t care what the supreme court says!’ I shudder a bit in fear. Fear that violent people will feel that such statements will give them leave to commit mayhem. Remember, in the 1980s President Reagan was reluctant to publicly criticize crazies whom attacked abortion clinics. To some folks, that was a tacit sign that it was O.K. to shoot doctors and others, just like some rebels thought it was O.K. to fatally maim Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner or Viola Gregg in Mississippi and Alabama.
@lasma:
If you follow conventional wisdom on government workers ie it being the hangout of those who can’t make it in the private sector (and for the record, I don’t share that belief) then it comes down to they see the job as their personal domain where they can decide who or what they want to serve. If someone has heartfelt religious beliefs and they can be accommodated without inconveniencing the clients of the office, I have no problem with that, but I can just see what might happen in some places “Due to the religious beliefs of the people in this office, the nearest office that will service marriage license requests is X” (usually many miles away) or “for those requiring a same sex marriage license, a clerk will be available once a month”, both of which don’t meet the test of accomodating religious belief and are just plain discrimination.