Can Court Clerks Decline to Do Gay Marriages? How It’s Playing Out in the States

A few cases of public employees who cite their faith in declining to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples have grabbed media attention, but similar concerns exist in scores of courthouses across America, a lawyer for a prominent Christian legal organization says.

“In most instances the government can accommodate the religious beliefs of the objecting person,” @AllianceDefends’ Jeremy Tedesco

A  suit against a Kentucky court clerk was scheduled to be heard today by a federal judge, and county commissions were set to vote on the resignations of clerks in Tennessee and Texas.

The cases, the lawyer told The Daily Signal, are just three examples of difficult choices created by the Supreme Court’s5-4 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the nation.

“I think the bottom line is, in most instances the government can accommodate the religious beliefs of the objecting person,” said Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.

An ultimatum of “comply or lose your job” by some LGBT activists and their supporters, he said, runs counter to “our rich history of religious freedom and religious accommodation.”

Civil disobedience to the ruling, and to instructions issued by governors and other state authorities, initially occurred among clerks and other court employees in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.

However, Tedesco said the offices of Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, have been “inundated” by calls and emails from courthouse employees and officials who aren’t sure what their office will do, want to understand their rights, or have asked for an accommodation for their faith but haven’t yet gotten one.

>>> For more on religious liberty and same-sex marriage, see Ryan T. Anderson’s new book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.”

In some cases, clerks and other court employees have resigned rather than issue licenses for same-sex nuptials.

Via: Daily Signal

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[COMMENTARY] Clerks are bound to follow law

FRANKFORT  – A Republican attorney I know sees the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage and the reaction in Kentucky – where some county clerks refuse to issue marriage licenses – through the lens of history.

“It’s this generation’s Brown v. Board of Education,” he said, referring to the landmark court ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional.

“You don’t have to like it, but it’s the law,” my attorney friend continued.

The attorney is no Democrat. He’s not urban and he’s certainly not liberal. I have no idea how he feels about the morality of same-sex marriage. But he understands the law and how our system works.

There are similarities between the same-sex ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, and the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that threw out the “separate but equal” justification for school desegregation.

Even the phrase “separate but equal” resonates in some Kentucky county clerks’ explanation of why their religious beliefs should allow them to refuse to grant marriage licenses. After all, they say, a couple can obtain the desired license simply by driving to a neighboring county – but they didn’t ask opposite-sex couples to do that until the court ruling.

The court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. But it was 1964 before the Glasgow schools I attended integrated. Significant social change sometimes doesn’t happen overnight.

There are likely to be others who resist the ruling of the court. Just like some did in the civil rights era, some are now calling for changes to our court system and decrying a decision by “five liberal, unelected lawyers” (never mind a majority of the court is conservative and was appointed by Republican presidents).

Like civil rights and abortion, there will probably be more court battles as some resist the ruling. But supporters of same-sex marriage can probably draw hope from the history of the civil rights battles and from the general trend of American history to enlarge and expand individual minority rights rather than restrict them.

Via: Glasgow Daily Times

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Toledo judge refuses to perform gay marriage

A northwest Ohio municipal judge assigned to a courtroom where civil marriages are performed refused to marry two women less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, the judge’s office confirmed on Wednesday.

Toledo Municipal Judge Allen McConnell was on a three-week rotation assigned to perform civil ceremonies on Monday when Carolyn Wilson and her partner asked to be married. McConnell acknowledged the decision in a Wednesday statement.

“On Monday, July 6, I declined to marry a non-traditional couple during my duties assignment,” he said. “The declination was based upon my personal and Christian beliefs established over many years. I apologize to the couple for the delay they experienced and wish them the best.”

On June 26, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution provides same-sex couples the right to marry, handing a historic triumph to the gay rights movement.

Toledo Municipal Court judges performed 98 marriages in 2014 and 49 marriages so far this year. Deputy court administrator Michael Zenk said the request by the women on Monday was the first time the court was asked to perform a same-sex marriage.

After McConnell refused, Judge William Connelly, Jr. performed the ceremony for the women, Zenk said.

“It is the policy of the court to accommodate wedding requests and we will continue to do that for both opposite and same-sex marriage,” Zenk said.

McConnell said he will continue to perform “traditional marriages” and is, “seeking an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court of Ohio” about whether he can “opt out of the rotation” that would have him perform civil marriages.

Via: Columbus Dispatch

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Gay marriage, Obamacare, Confederate flag comes down - a generation is defined: Rhonda Mays

While watching the series of special reports on television news during the last week of June as Supreme Court rulings were announced, I turned to my daughter and said, "Pay close attention to what is happening. This is a week that will be remembered for generations to come."

Rhonda Mays

 

Only once or twice in a lifetime can we expect to witness a decision of historic significance. To witness several major rulings within a short period of time, so different in their focus but extremely important regarding the future of our nation, is very unusual.  

Confederate flag

While not a ruling by the Supreme Court, the decision by Gov. Nikki Haley to request removal of the Confederate flag flying on state grounds in South Carolina has had an impact nationwide. For millions of Americans, and many citizens of other nations, the Confederate flag is a relic of a sorrowful and unfortunate past. To them it represents rebellion against our Union, terrorism, and officially sanctioned oppression of a massive number of individuals for promotion of the false narratives of racial superiority and segregation.

Personally, I would be in favor of banning the display of the Confederate flag on any property, public or private, due to its perverse symbolism. However, I understand that would be disagreeable to many and adverse to the American premise that freedom of speech and expression is a right. Accordingly, in America, an individual is free to privately fly or stick the Confederate flag anywhere they please on their person or private property, and we are free to surmise what displaying that flag represents regarding the individual's character.   

Affordable Care Act

With the Affordable Care Act, federal subsidies to the poor were upheld as constitutional in a 6-3 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts was joined in the majority opinion by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy and Elena Kagan.

In a case which exemplifies the notion of the impact of unintended consequences, the Supreme Court ruled tax credits which make medical insurance affordable for low and moderate income families are allowable nationwide. The case, King vs. Burwell, establishes the intent of Congress to provide subsidies for health care by the state or the federal governments. If the ruling had denied the ability of the federal government to provide tax credits or subsidies, millions of individuals previously receiving health care purchased through exchanges would have experienced drastic increases in premium costs which, in turn, would have made medical insurance prohibitively high. Many of these individuals would have lost their health care rendering the ACA ineffective. For them, the only hope would be for the states which decided to not establish their own exchanges did so, as states, "under a death spiral scenario so coercive as to be unconstitutional."

In the majority opinion, Roberts wrote, "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter."

With those two simple sentences a key part of the ACA intended to extend health care to millions of Americans who probably would not be insured, was established as law.

Fair housing

Texas Department of Community Affairs vs. Inclusive Communities Project upheld claims of disparate impact as a measure of fair housing practices by a 5-4 decision. Justices Kennedy, Sotomayor, Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan were in the majority.

For civil rights and fair housing advocates this ruling is critical because it reaffirms the notion that "intent" to racially discriminate need not be proven, only a negative impact to the goals of the Fair Housing Act must be demonstrated  to exist. This ruling upheld the constitutional legitimacy of one of the most powerful tools used by advocates to promote housing desegregation, equal access to services, and diverse communities within the nation.

Via: PennLive

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Words Used to Mean Things – Then Came Government

We are a nation founded upon and (allegedly) governed by words. Beginning with – specifically, foundational-ly – the Constitution. Every syllable was by our Founding Fathers debated and carefully crafted. To ensure a limited, enumerated government, maximum freedom for We the People – and a document that clearly, concisely laid out these parameters.

The Constitution is a “living, breathing document” – but with the amendment process as its only respiratory system. If you don’t like it – amend it. Otherwise, it is what it is – it says what it says.

The Constitution established a system that also relies on precise language. The Legislative Branch writes legislation – that must be within government’s Constitutional parameters. Every syllable is debated and carefully crafted. And since we directly elect this Branch’s members, we get to have a direct say in the words meant to lord over us. We get to lobby Congress to redress our grievances – to help shape the words they write.

“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it” is an unbelievably heinous dereliction of Congressional, Constitutional duty.

When passed, legislation is then sent for signature to the Executive Branch – a President we also elect. If the President signs, the panoply of departments, agencies, commissions and boards then implement it. Though these entities exist in the Executive – they are creations and creatures of the Legislative. They would not exist without law first creating them. They can not do anything unless and until the Legislative with law tells them to do it. And they are bound to adhere to the spirit and the letters of these laws – and to remain within their parameters. The words passed must be the words implemented – no more, no less.

As we’ve seen for decades – and on steroids during the Barack Obama Administration – the huge regulatory apparatus has made rocketing past its limits standard operating procedure. Overreaches, fiats, diktats – the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Health and Human Services (HHS), et cetera ad nauseum. Written words – ignored and eviscerated in favor of ideological impositions.

All of which is why there is a Judicial Branch. The Judicial is in the strict-Constitutional-limits-enforcement business. They are to ensure that the laws written – and the government they create – exist within Constitutional bounds. Justices and judges are unelected to avoid political influence – which only works if they remain unpolitical, within their Constitutional bounds. If they write legislative words rather than merely analyze them – reworking laws into new meanings and mandates – we have (yet more) problems.

In the Supreme Court’s King v Burwell decision, six of its nine Justices green-lit yet another huge Obama Administration overreach. By pretending – and allowing HHS to continue to pretend – that plain words don’t mean plain things.

Via: Red State

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Support Grows for States to Ignore the Federal Courts

Following last week’s controversial U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Obamacare and gay marriage, voters believe more strongly that individual states should have the right to turn their backs on the federal courts.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 33% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe that states should have the right to ignore federal court rulings if their elected officials agree with them. That’s up nine points from 24% when we first asked this question in February.  Just over half (52%) disagree, down from 58% in the earlier survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Perhaps even more disturbing is that the voters who feel strongest about overriding the federal courts – Republicans and conservatives - are those who traditionally have been the most supportive of the Constitution and separation of powers. During the Obama years, however, these voters have become increasingly suspicious and even hostile toward the federal government.

Fifty percent (50%) of GOP voters now believe states should have the right to ignore federal court rulings, compared to just 22% of Democrats and 30% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Interestingly, this represents a noticeable rise in support among all three groups.

Fifty percent (50%) of conservative voters share this view, but just 27% of moderates and 15% of liberals agree.

Voters are closely divided in their opinions of both of last week’s major rulings. Negative views of the Supreme Court are at their highest level in nearly nine years of regular surveying. Positive opinions are also up to a less dramatic three-year high.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 30-July 1, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Earlier this year, 26% of voters told Rasmussen Reports that President Obama should have the right to ignore federal court rulings if they are standing in the way of actions he feels are important for the country. Forty-three percent (43%) of Democrats shared this belief, while 81% of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters disagreed.

The more a voter approves of Obama’s performance, the more likely he or she is to say that states should not have the right to ignore the federal courts.

Higher income voters are more likely to oppose letting states ignore federal court rulings than those who earn less.

Support for ignoring the federal courts is up among most demographic groups, however.

Most voters have long believed that the Supreme Court justices have their own political agenda, and they still tend to feel that that agenda is more liberal than conservative.

A plurality (47%) of voters continues to believe the federal government has too much influence over state governments, and 54% think states should have the right to opt out of federal government programs that they don’t agree with.  Even more (61%) think states should have the right to opt out of federally mandated programs if the federal government doesn’t help pay for them.

The Declaration of Independence, the foundational document that Americans honor on the Fourth of July, says that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, but just 25% believe that to be true of the federal government today.

Only 20% now consider the federal government a protector of individual liberty.  Sixty percent (60%) see the government as a threat to individual liberty instead.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only. 

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

Via: Rasmussen Reports

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[EDITORIAL] God, a cop and gay marriage

He just had to get it off his chest. In a Facebook post, an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy wrote: “If it ever comes down to having to enforce any kind of laws regarding gay marriage … mark my words … I will not do it!”

He added: “I will not adjust to man’s standard over what the word of God says.”

Unfortunately for this irate deputy, the oath he took and the gun and badge he carries are all about “man’s standard.” And Sheriff’s Office policy says employees can express themselves on social media only as long as “their speech does not impair the working relationships of this agency.”

A law enforcer declaring he won’t enforce certain laws might indeed impair working relationships. So Sheriff Larry Ashley had the deputy take down his offending post.

That was the easy part. It’s a little tougher to square last week’s Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage with — as the deputy put it — “what the word of God says.”

We would suggest there is no need for conflict.

People of faith can still oppose gay lifestyles and the idea of gay marriage if they’re inclined to do so.

Churches are still free to decide whether or not to bless such relationships.

We are comfortable with the Supreme Court’s decision because it enlarges Americans’ sphere of personal liberty. This newspaper has long maintained that government should have little or no role in defining or regulating so intimate a relationship as marriage.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted last week with the minority, said the court ought to back off because “whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us.” Bravo!

Via: NWF Daily News

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Congress Has a Plan to Defend Your First Amendment Rights After Court’s Marriage Ruling

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In the wake of Friday’s 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court in the marriage case, Obergefell v. Hodges, many of the millions of Americans who voted to define marriage as an exclusively male-female institution in their state constitutions will be wondering: What does this mean for me?

Congress must move swiftly to pass the First Amendment Defense Act.

If five judges on the Supreme Court have pronounced, in a breathtaking presumption of power, that all 50 states must redefine marriage, what does that mean for the countless institutions within our civil society—churches and synagogues, charities and adoption agencies, counseling services and religiously affiliated schools—that are made up of American citizens who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman?

Will federal government agencies follow the heavy-handed approach taken by the present majority of Supreme Court justices—say, by revoking the non-profit, tax-exempt status of faith-based schools that continue to operate on the basis of their religious beliefs about marriage?

Nowhere in the majority’s 28-page opinion will you find a reliable answer to these questions. In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts explains why.

“Federal courts are blunt instruments when it comes to creating rights,” Roberts writes, because “they do not have the flexibility of legislatures to address concerns of parties not before the court or to anticipate problems that may arise from the exercise of a new right.”

It’s true that Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, acknowledges—as if in passing—that “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths,” including their conviction that marriage is the union between one man and one woman.

Via: Daily Signal

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WAPO: RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS COULD SUFFER ‘IN A BIG WAY’ THANKS TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RULING

The start of the erosion of religious liberty emanating from the Supreme Court’s decision that approved same-sex marriage throughout the nation is officially underway. The Washington Post observes that because “real money” is involved in legal marriage, the ruling could cause religious schools that ban homosexual relationships and cohabitation to suffer “in a big way” with the loss of tax-exempt status and accreditation.

“Marriage is a potent symbol, first and foremost, but it also means real money,” wrote Max Ehrenfreund at WaPo Friday. “Same-sex couples pay all kinds of unexpected costs if they can’t marry, and housing and benefits at religious institutions is another example.”

Similarly, in anticipation of the Court’s decision in Obergefell, Laurie Goodstein and Adam Liptak of the New York Times wrote Wednesday:

Conservative religious schools all over the country forbid same-sex relationships, from dating to couples’ living in married-student housing, and they fear they will soon be forced to make a wrenching choice. If the Supreme Court this month finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the schools say they will have to abandon their policies that prohibit gay relationships or eventually risk losing their tax-exempt status.

According to the Times, the Internal Revenue Service may feel compelled to remove the tax-exempt status of religious schools if they continue to ban gay relationships and cohabitation “as a violation of a ‘fundamental national public policy’ under the reasoning of a 1983 Supreme Court decision that allowed the agency to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that banned interracial relationships.”

Via: Breitbart

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Sundays will never be the same

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet

 Now that Gay Day June 26th has come to pass,  and Barack Obama had the White House flooded in the colours of the gay rainbow, Sundays will never be the same.    Sunday, that is, as the day Christians come to church to worship the Creator.  The progressives want Sunday, and as sure as Lucifer is now calling the shots, they will be coming for it.

Sunday, the day of rest, will ultimately become the day of arrest.

While the witch-hunt against Confederate flags, statues, paintings and even stained glass windows continues to distract the masses, it’s really the churches Big Government most covet.

Before too long churches of every denomination will be incubators for ridding society of Christianity.

Seeking to replace the Christian God with Gaia; having long ago driven the Almighty out of the public square, progressives have decreed the Christian God as a false one and will have no false gods before them.

Instead of taking home profound reminders of the Gospel, worshippers who still turn out for Sunday service will be given pamphlets teaching them how to save the Earth as the ongoing cycle of Gaia replacing Christianity comes full bore.

Over time, congregants will be instructed from the pulpit that homosexuals practice a kind of love that cannot be described as sodomy.  Christian believers with the temerity to argue that this isn’t the truth will be left to the mercy of their pastors, pastors who are capable of having fellow congregants turn on them as hate-worthy ‘homophobes’. 

The progressives are imposing on society the unreal as the real.  How long will it be before self-made celebrities like Bruce Jenner and twerking Miley Cyrus will be brought up to the pulpit to lecture church goers that “love is love”?

Via: Canada Free Press

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Supreme Court Ruling On Gay Marriage May Pave Way For Expanded Gun Rights…

With the high court’s latest ruling on same-sex marriages, some contend the decision could lead to increased gun rights, specifically national CCW reciprocity, by using the same argument.

Friday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and recognize those sanctioned by other states.

“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the landmark decision that arguably made same sex marriage a reality in the 13 remaining states that continued to ban the practice.

With similar logic applied, gun rights advocates argue that the nation’s patchwork of firearms laws governing the concealed carry of handguns are now circumspect under the same guidelines. In short, they reason if marriage equality is guaranteed from state to state, then so should concealed carry rights.

“To paraphrase what Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said about same-sex marriage,” noted Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb in a statement Friday, “no right is more profound than the right of self-preservation, and under the Constitution, all citizens should be able to exercise the right of self-defense anywhere in the country. It disparages their ability to do so, and diminishes their personhood to deny the right to bear arms they have in their home states when they are visiting other states.”

While every state has a framework to issue concealed carry permits, they are under no obligation to recognize those issued by other states and territories. For example, Illinois and Hawaii only recognize permits issued by their respective jurisdictions. In contrast, Ohio recognizes licenses from any other state regardless of whether Ohio has entered into a reciprocity agreement.

Via: Guns

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GOP Sen. Inhofe: A Lot of My Gay Friends Think SCOTUS Decision Was Bad

In reaction to the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages across all 50 states, Sen.James Inhofe (R-OK) pulled the “some of my friends are gay” card, but not in the way you’d normally expect.

“I’ve been disappointed, and I was not surprised. I thought they would rule the way they did,” Inhofe told Tulsa’s CBS-affiliated KOTV. “I know a lot of people, actually a lot of people who are friends of mine in the gay community, who also think it was a bad decision,” he added in the clip first spotted by BuzzFeed News reporter Andrew Kaczynski

Via: Mediaite

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Obama sheds cool style for 'fearless' final lap in office

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama has reached the stage of his presidency where if he wants to break out in song publicly, as he did with “Amazing Grace” in a eulogy on Friday, then he’s going to do it.

With a year-and-a-half left in office, Obama is shedding some of his trademark “no drama” style for a looser approach, admitting that he feels more fearless and liberated.

It may also be in recognition that he has few big-ticket policy achievements left to enjoy in polarized Washington as the end of his two-term presidency approaches.

In a remarkable week for the president, a victory on Pacific Rim trade was snatched from the jaws of defeat on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The Supreme Court on Thursday validated his signature healthcare law, guaranteeing he would accomplish a central second-term goal, to protect the 2010 Affordable Care Act from being dismantled by Republicans.

The icing on the cake came on Friday with the high court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage, a move Obama said was a "big step" toward equality for Americans.

After the court decision was announced, Obama took a Rose Garden victory lap.

“Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back," he said.

"And then sometimes, there are days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”

Some Obama confidants described a more liberated, even feistier president, willing to mix it up with a heckler inside the White House, as he did on Wednesday. Or willing to use a racial epithet, long abandoned by civil society, to describe black people in urging more racial unity.

Why the change in style? He has more experience now, the president said in a podcast interview last week with comedian Marc Maron.

Via: Yahoo News

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