Religious liberty of public employee vs. same-sex marriage rights. How to reconcile?

Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that we are legally or even morally obligated to temporarily accommodate those clerks who are having trouble adjusting to the new reality. If we’re talking about either of those things, I’d say: fire their asses. What I am talking about is going an extra mile and recognizing that everyone doesn’t adjust to change at the same speed. Instead, we can choose to make some accommodations in the interest of promoting civility.

That is all. We can choose to do this, not we must choose.

What if they had refused to issue a drivers license to a woman, or a buisness license to an African american?

How about denying a gay pride parade permit that is to happen on a Sunday?

What is the limit on allowing someone to deny a constitutional right due to their own bigotry?

I say we should have zero tolerance for bigotry.

Since women were not granted the right to drive last week, nor were African Americans granted the right to own businesses last week, I’d say: Too bad. Do the job you knew you would have to do when you took it.

Were Sunday gay pride parades illegal last week? No, I didn’t think so.

So that justifies violating core civil rights? Because bigots can’t be expected to do their jobs and follow court orders?

Without a clause in a ruling, when SCOTUS has ruled that you have been violating civil rights the change should be immediate. There is no if’s ands or buts about it.

They were wrong, they need to change behavior immediately.

They have no right to a “warm up period” to stop violating the rights of the citizens they serve just because their bigoted hearts are broken.

You make it sound like they’re mildly retarded and simply don’t understand the new procedures. No, they are knowingly and deliberately disobeying an order from the US Supreme Court.

You mentioned earlier allowing them some time, and you mentioned “within months”. I’d give them 48 hours, and that applies to everyone up and down the line. If the state attorney general is still telling clerks they should refuse to issue licences, I might opt to give the clerks a couple of more days while I slap the AG into jail if he refuses to reverse his order.

Any time at all given to them should be under suspension without pay, and only for the purpose of letting them reconsider their decision in the light of imminently losing their employment.

As a country, we are done with choosing to accommodate the bigots. We already did that. That part is over.

Get it?

But … but … how could *both *sides be at fault then?

Even with children, you don’t say, "Billie, I need you to stop hitting your brother in about a week or two. Do you think you could get used to not hitting your brother in that amount of time??

This.

Because if there’s some right to keep one’s job while not doing the parts of it one doesn’t like because one has a religious objection to them, we can all invent our own sets of deeply-held religious beliefs, Hobby Lobby-style, and only have to do the parts of our jobs that we really really like.

Ah, but to qualify as a legitimate religious belief, they have to be sincere, which is a fancy legal term for held by conservative christians.

We’re not allowing anyone to commit any act of violence on another person.

I’m not advocating that anyone’s civil rights be violated.

The hell you’re not. You’re advocating that some gay couples have their civil right to marry be violated until a few clerks either resign or get over their snits.

That is exactly what you are advocating.

Facilitating same sex marriage might not have been part of the job description when they got hired.

It’s not clear to me that the reconciliation process is (or has to be) any more complicated than “do your job or resign.”

Nope.

Fire them yesterday. Same goes for any pharmacist who refuses to fill a legal prescription.

Door, ass.

Alito’s dissent seems prescient given this thread.