Exactly. And if they couldn’t do that, they wouldn’t have applied for the job.
We won this battle, RNALTB, and we can choose to be gracious winners or not. I choose the former. That is all.
That’s fine. Now that the job is slightly different, if they don’t want it anymore, they can quit. Nobody is forcing them to do anything, let them do nothing if they want.
They can damn well choose to stay home to protest-they don’t get to choose to do parts of their job and still receive their whole paycheck.
You choose to support continuing to frustrate the law and continuing to keep gays in a second-class status. That is not gracious, or even winning.
These officials took oaths to uphold the law. If they cannot uphold those oaths, then they need to be replaced by others who can. It isn’t complicated.
Great. That’s your opinion, and I’m not going to say you’re wrong. My opinion differs for reasons I’ve already stated.
I’m going to add a bit here… when you’re in a public facing job, whether it’s a gov’t official, retail store owner, whatever, there is a phrase you just don’t get to use.
“I don’t serve your kind.”
You don’t get to say it to anyone, ever. If you want that phrase to be part of your repertoire, get a new job, one where you’re not dealing with the public.
Yeah, what a bunch of needy whiners those gays are. Why can’t they be more like that paragon of quiet grace, John Mace. Certainly if John Mace won a court case against the government and a county clerk put him off with a “I don’t feel like it”, John Mace would smile and say, “No problem. I’ll check back in a month to see if you’ve come to terms with my constitutional rights.”
Sure you do, if it’s a “kind” that hasn’t received public acceptance. In fact, it’s still legal to “not serve” gays in some states. And if you are a county clerk in a state that doesn’t allow cousins to marry, you get say it to any two cousins who come in for a marriage license.
I never said anyone was a needy whiner. I specifically said I wouldn’t say someone was wrong if they disagreed with me. And yes, I hope I would act that way if I was affected.
But I would stipulate further that the county should make sure someone can issue licenses in the interim. If not a clerk, then whoever is the highest elected official gets to fill in during the adjustment period. Gives them incentive to move the process along.
The war may be over, but every concession, every delay of this sort tells others that it’s ok to do the same-it actually adds fuel to the fire of hate, and it tells the Republicans that are feeding on that hate that they are on the right path. It tells them that there is still room to push back, to tell those that hate, “See! They are weak and we can still take it back! Elect me and we can still Save America!!”, and whether or not they can roll back what has just been won, do not doubt they can, and will, make that win as difficult to maintain as is humanly possible if we let them. You say all that clerk needs is a little time to adjust to follow the law of the land? The political leaders she/he follows are in all likelihood right now telling that person that they have the right to disobey the SCOTUS both morally and maybe even legally. Giving these clerks a few days free rein isn’t going to make things better-it’s going to make things worse, imho.
Dunno if it has been posted here already (and I apologize if it has), but this reaction is too absurd not to share: Ted Cruz: “Today is some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history”.
Really? Gays get to marry, and that’s on par with Pearl Harbor and 9/11?
This is not a game of checkers, or the Superbowl or a marital dispute about where to spend Thanksgiving this year.
It’s a matter of Constitutional rights and dignity. There’s no graciousness in turning away from people who continue to put up barriers.
When these clerks took their job, they knew exactly what the rules were: to serve the governmental function necessary to issue licenses pursuant to the law. If they have decided they can no longer do that, they need to quit their job now.
But I don’t have to be civil about it, I don’t have to accommodate it, or be gracious about it. They get to have whatever protection the law provides them, and that’s it. They dont’ get respect or understanding, or anything else from me. And now that it’s part of their job to serve gays, I really don’t owe them shit. Do your job, or quit.
Or, you can treat people with respect and dignity.
Only the marriage part of it. That was a deciding battle, not the war, but battles over the myriad other issues of anti-gay discrimination are still ahead in many states.
Exactly. Well put.
They’ve all had plenty of time already to consider their options. Refusing to obey their oaths should not be one.
I think it’s been posted somewhere at SDMB but it’s worth repeating. However, the atrocity of allowing Obamacare to continue is part of the hideous disaster that Cruz is decrying!
Absolutely. On its face, I understand the desire to be the bigger people, to be gracious winners. However, these people are being anything but gracious losers. They’re holding their breaths and stamping their feet like children having a temper tantrum. Validating that behavior in any way is a very bad idea. The court has spoken, if you don’t like it, suck it up and move on because that’s what adults do when things don’t go their way.
If you’re a public servant, do your damn job or get fired. There is really no acceptable middle ground here.
And anyway, it’s totally possible to be a gracious winner while also not accommodating people who want to dig in their heels and ignore the court decision. Just like it’s possible to discharge your sworn duty to the public while also not personally endorsing gay marriage.
Every time a married gay goes to the doctor, American freedom dies a little? 
And another fairy gets its wings?
I can’t think of a time when we should delay enacting something because someone won’t comply. Sure, when they can’t comply immediately, we put in delays to allow them time to get up to speed. But when they just don’t want to?
And the idea that such a rule would actually make things work better is nonsense. First, it would keep people in jobs where they got to spew their idiocy and hatred. Second, they wouldn’t be saying “Oh, I won’t serve gays but the government is nice enough, and they were nice enough winners, to let me keep my job while I look for something else.” Instead, it would be “Those fascist faggots are destroying America and forcing me out of my job!”
And graciousness is not confined to those events. We expect our political leaders to be gracious after elections-- neither gloating over a win nor bad-mouthing after a loss.
I’m going to bookmark this page since so many folks seem to think it’s no big deal for another person to have to look for another job. That’s not usually the response one gets around here when that topic comes up.
The tough part about being gracious as being so* even when the other side does not.*
I’d have no problem with firing someone for spewing hatred on their job, so no, it wouldn’t keep those people in those jobs.