Any same-sex couple that is refused a marriage license should remain at the clerk's window and make two phone calls: first, call your local FBI office and report that a public official is acting in defiance of established law. Next, call the ACLU hotline at 888-503-6838.
I'm sure that the FBI won't do diddly squat (and that the established law is questionable right now since there is the x day review period for the Supreme's decision), but I suppose that the complaint does get officially logged.
I am Southern, White, Male, and Christian, and i think these loudmouthed idiots need to shut up.
Gay Marriage is a thing long overdue. It is a thing now. It does not need church approval. It does not need your approval. It is something I am grateful is happening.
Itâs not a great solution. The clerk gets to feel all martyred and it wonât change the mind of said clerk or his or her thinkers-in-law. Much better to take sanctions against the whole institution of which the clerk is an employee. The institution, after all, is the thing thatâs supposed to get its officers to behave well in. It takes longer, but this shit is going to take a generation of wankers to die-off anyway.
âNo marriage shall be solemnized without a license thereforâ is clear state interference with free exercise of religion, and is facially invalid as a First Amendment violation.
Furthermore, because the state requires a license to get married, and the clerk is refusing to issue the license because it violates her religious beliefs, sheâs establishing her religion as the official one in that part of Kentucky, which is even more directly violating the First Amendment.
And calling the cops to get them to stop recording is violating freedom of the press.
Sheâs gonna have a lotta esplaininâ to do.
If she were a Justice of the Peace or some other official that performs civil marriage ceremonies, and refused to do that for gay people because it violated her religion, that would be different - it would still be refusing to do her job (and would be pretty hypocritical if she did perform weddings for divorced people, which her religion says a lot more about), so it would still be illegal, but it wouldnât be preventing the couple from having someone else perform the ceremony, or marrying each other without an officiant (which is how Quakers do weddings); local law probably requires two witnesses to the wedding.
This exercise should be repeated and videoed/recorded surreptitiously.
The act of her denying the license is evidence enough of her wrongdoing for courts et al. But a candid video of it is what will best relay that wrongdoing to the masses. She has no right to conduct the business of the State off camera especially when the members of the public she is harming wish it to be recorded, but if she canât be persuaded to do her dirty work publicly and recorded doing so in a format people will best understand, it should be recorded without her input. It doesnât matter if the video isnât adequate for a court, a court doesnât need it. People would benefit tho.
There should also be strict punitive measures related to being fired/removed from office for this sort of offence. Take her pension. All of it. See how many follow her lead.
The law is clearly not entirely compatible with Obergefell, but Iâm not sure that we can (or would want to) say that this and other peripheral administrative-type laws like it that address issues not explicitly decided by Obergefell are all void. Legislatures are going to have a lot of redrawing to do, but in the meantime, the railroadâs gotta run.
Cool! I hereby waive all rights to it and place it in the public domain.
Huh? I thought the point was pretty clear: the clerks can resign instead of giving them a marriage license, but theyâll still be sentenced to Hell anyway, but Obama/The Antichrist will commute their sentence to an eternity of picking trash up on the beaches of San Francisco instead.
As entertaining as that would be, itâs more a response of last resort.
I expect that this clerk will be relieved of duty - retired, or transferred to another department where her beliefs arenât in conflict with her job.
I found a news story with the reaction of Kentucky officials to the marriage equality ruling, and itâs actually quite heartening - all the people who are actually in power are expressing full intent to comply with the law, with some of them actually expressing personal support for equality:
Yeah, good luck with that. I doubt any firingâs going to happen. And of course very few public officials get fired for trying to use police to intimidate people into not filming their misfeasance and nonfeasance in office.
But it was nice to see that Allison Lundergan Grimes is secretary of state there - I hadnât realized she was able to keep the office while running for Senate.
Faubus had ordered the Arkansas state guard to prevent integration and to bar the studentsâ way. That gave Eisenhower the legal power to send in the army to suppress insurrection, nationalize the state guard, and order them not to bar the studentsâ way.
Sorry for being too terse. The clerk should follow the example of St. Thomas. If the clerk canât obey the civil law without disobeying Godâs law the clerk should resign the job which requires it.
How about this: FUCKING SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD TO FORCE THESE FUCKERS TO DO THEIR GODDAMN JOBS! WEâVE DONE IT BEFORE, WE CAN FUCKING DO IT AGAIN, DONâT THINK WE WONâT!
