I think I am somebody with similar views on same-sex marriage rights and I don’t want to see bad arguments in support of them; it sets the cause back. I am generally on the left, but I expect people on the right to call out those who make them look bad, and I do the same for my own side. I did not order you to stop; I merely pointed out that you’re doing a bad job and I hope you stop.
For what it’s worth, I think you’re normally a reasonable, thoughtful poster, and a good advocate for your views. You just seem to have lost all perspective when it comes to this church/state stuff, and by extension, gay marriage.
I did not call you an idiot, or say you insulted anyone, and I apologize if you took my comments that way. I am saying you are arguing ineffectively for your views. I did not intend to be a jerk; I intended to stop you from giving fodder to the opposition.
Ok well the fault is mine, thank you for taking my comments in stride and responding calmly. I become more incoherent the more i get fired up about a cause and also with the less sleep I get. Sometimes both of those factors occur at once… as has been the case in general for the last 48 hours or so…
Assume it is a given that this is infringement on your religious practices (which are protected as are religious beliefs).
So a court is faced with a situation in which your claim of Title VII religious discrimination and First Amendment violation is up against the clerk’s office, the employer generally being held liable for the actions of its employee.
But the clerk turns around and raises a claim of Title VII religious discrimination and First Amendment violation against her employer for putting her in that situation and argues that a reasonable accommodation was available, asked for, and refused.
Now the clerk’s office is getting hit from both ends.
That is why these offices need to evaluate, right now, *if *there are available reasonable accommodations that would allow for the marriage licenses to be processed in a timely manner and also allow the objecting employee to be accommodated.
It’s not that I disagree with you. I agree with you 100%.
I’m just ROFLMAO at the possibility of “they should be mature/respectful enough to govern from reason and common sense and not from religious bias.” In these parts, they’d proudly proclaim that they were doing it “due to their religious beliefs.”
Or maybe, instead of laughing, I should be crying.
What is my protection against all the employees of a government office preventing me from engaging in “sinful” but entirely legal behavior by using their religious freedom (as it’s being interpreted here) to deny me licenses for which I meet the legal requirements? And if I have no protection, or if my protection is that I could technically do something that is massively inconvenient for me to overcome obstacles not placed before people who aren’t “sinning”, how is my freedom of religion to be protected?
Just tell the clerk at the records office that God has commanded you to marry someone of the same sex, and, by denying you the license, he’s the one who is trampling your religious freedom.
As always happens in these cases, the bigots cannot generalize, nor recognize the possible validity of other religions.
The same people who are determined to return prayer to public schools will turn right about on their hypocritical asses to deny Islamic prayer to be included.
You can’t give equal rights to one group without taking it away from another group. What court houses can do is offer one person who for sure signs marriage licenses and then one person who doesn’t.
Basically, if you want to start a church, pray to Allah in your spare time, put a menorah or other religious item in your window, become a televangelist on TV you can go ahead and do that. The government can’t prevent you from doing so, so long as those practices don’t conflict with some other neutrally applied law (generally).
What typically happens, from what I’ve seen in practice, is that in smaller, religiously homogenous communities, people think “separation of Church and State” means “we are a Christian community, but we tolerate other religions”. Specifically, they allow the Jewish, Muslim and other non-Christian members of the community to participate in the local public school’s annual Christmas show.
It’s a bullshit argument. The clerk isn’t being asked to perform or participate in a religious ceremony. They are conducting a bureaucratic task on behalf of the State. Should the State create a different line for gays, another line for mixed-race couples and then separate lines for each religion so that no clerk has to be subjected to endorsing marriage outside his faith?
Sorry, but I don’t see any reason to accommodate the “rights” of one group to sandbag the exercising of another group’s rights that have already been established by law.
I would love to see the conservative reaction if the clerk that issued concealed carry permits claimed a religious objection as a pacifist to enabling people to carry guns. “No, you can’t carry a gun because it violates my religious beliefs.” Let’s see if they defend his religious rights.
I may have asked a similar question upthread, or in a different thread, but: what sin might one be committing by attesting, in one’s official capacity, to the objectively true fact that a same-sex couple meets the state’s (or commonwealth’s, in this case) requirements for a government-issued marriage license? It’s not a rhetorical question, in the sense that I genuinely don’t know the answer.
Probably something along the lines of an excuse that the laws of God supersede those of man and the laws of God (as she sees them) say that same-sex marriage is icky.
Except that, as I pointed out in another thread, Romans 13 v1-5 explicitly say to follow the law and the directions of legal authorities or be punished. So Paul certainly didn’t think that the laws of God supersede the laws of man.
Do the laws of God apply to civil marriage? The applicants were gay before they applied for the license and they will continue being gay afterward, and I’m pretty sure few same-sex couples are waiting for the ceremony before consummating the relationship, and the license will not require her church (or any church) to perform the ceremony. What is her objection to allowing them to change their legal status?
I do have a strong opinion on the subject which this is unlikely to change, but I’m trying to get some insight as to what she’s thinking, in terms of her own beliefs and values.
She seems to believe that issuing the license means she is endorsing SSM, and God doesn’t want her to do that. Yes, it’s crazy, but no crazier than the legislature discussing a new law to explicitly exempt her (or maybe all county clerks?) from having to sign the licenses.