Kern County Clerk to Stop Performing Marriages

Darat said:
See that's 23 marriages destroyed by allowing same-sex marriages, and people said same-sex marriage wouldn't damage real marriage!
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Seriously though, when you remember it's really religion driving all this, this is even more bizarre. State marriages are not valid for a religion anyway. Hence these "county clerk" marriages wouldn't be real for any religious person that cared about gay marriages.

The gay marriages by clerks wouldn't be valid from their viewpoint anyway, so I don't even see why religious folks care. The whole world's sinning, so who cares if a state employee "marries" gay people outside of religion. Or even if some wayward "religious" clergy marry some gay people -- those clergy are part of the hellbound, deceived train, too.


I wonder why this logic has escaped their usual rationality?
 
TragicMonkey said:
But the cop can't decide not to pursue a criminal because he doesn't like the victim's race. The soldier can't decide not to fire on the enemy because they are the same religion. The doctor can't decide not to treat the patient because he doesn't like the patient's lifestyle.
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Not all jobs come with a duty to act. The plumber is likely to be able to tell you he will not fix your toilet becuase you are a homosexual.

So it really depends on is this the duty of the county clerk, and it seems to be that they do not have a duty to perform marriages in california, but they can not be discriminatory in who they perform them for.

As for the holland situation it seems that they have a duty to provide someone to marry the couple but are not allowed to force people to perform a different job than they where hired to perform.
 
TragicMonkey said:
We're not talking about "Amy has carpal tunnel and can't type too much" here, we're talking about "Mary hates the gays and won't dirty herself marrying them". People who refuse to do their job because of personal whims should not have that job. Especially if the job is government. The point is to serve the public. All of the public, not the bits of the public you happen to like.
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It is a workers rights issue. There is an act that many people object to strongly, you did not have to perform it to have your job when you where hired but would now. So do you have to perform this act?

This is not an easy question to answer, and preventing people from redefineing jobs so freely is something that I can see having some benefits.
 
Beerina said:
Seriously though, when you remember it's really religion driving all this, this is even more bizarre. State marriages are not valid for a religion anyway. Hence these "county clerk" marriages wouldn't be real for any religious person that cared about gay marriages.

The gay marriages by clerks wouldn't be valid from their viewpoint anyway, so I don't even see why religious folks care. The whole world's sinning, so who cares if a state employee "marries" gay people outside of religion. Or even if some wayward "religious" clergy marry some gay people -- those clergy are part of the hellbound, deceived train, too.


I wonder why this logic has escaped their usual rationality?
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Nominated!
 
Beerina brings up an interesting point, about civil marriages being civil matters, thus inherently outside the realm of religion.

I was reminded of an article I read this morning on the Guardian Unlimited (a/k/a theGroniad) the gist of which is that certain personality types preach
a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality.
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The study, which may or may not have great scientific merit, has been used to describe Our Glorious Christian Leader. It also says
This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes,
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There is a certain mentality that seems quite common among persons who cling desperately to outmoded prejudices and malicious stereotypes.

And to address Beerina's point more directly, Fundamentalist Christians frequently claim that marriage is an invention of Christianity, then proceed to use this possibly tenuous claim to justify imposing their religious slant on marriage onto all persons, whether or not they are afflicted with religious delusions.
 
When it's against the "pharmacist's principles" to dispense birth control, it's time for the pharmacist to get a new job... it's not time for the job to make special considerations for his/her moral opinions.

I want no part of the the faith delusion... it's inflicted on me every day... on my money... in my pledge... in my expected deference to peoples assorted faith based inanities. It's against my "principles" regarding honesty and the like-- what choices do I have?

If the clerks principles didn't allow her to marry interracial couples, I think this would be a moot point.

Separate rights are inherently unequal.

The clerk should find a job that suits her principles and not the other way around. Or better yet, she can take the advice she probably gives atheists... "if you don't like it, you can move to another country" (where you are not bound by "equal protection".) No one is forcing her to have a gay marriage... clerks don't get to decide who should or should not be married.
 
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ponderingturtle said:
It is a workers rights issue. There is an act that many people object to strongly, you did not have to perform it to have your job when you where hired but would now. So do you have to perform this act?

This is not an easy question to answer, and preventing people from redefineing jobs so freely is something that I can see having some benefits.
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If we replaced "homosexual marriage" with "interracial marriage," would anyone ask this question?
 
articulett said:
When it's against the "pharmacist's principles" to dispense birth control, it's time for the pharmacist to get a new job... it's not time for the job to make special considerations for his/her moral opinions.
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The California Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that pits Jesus-brand bigotry against a perfectly innocent lesbian couple who sought fertility care at a medical clinic in San Diego County.

There are some principles under California law that would hand this case to the lesbian couple plaintiffs, if found to apply. For example it is illegal in California to discriminate against a person based on their perceived or actual sexual orientation in matters of employment or housing, and these laws do not feature any "but I'm a bigot" escape clause. These laws were especially designed and created to force the compliance of bigots.

For reasons that are fairly obvious, I have a personal preference for laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

During the arguments before the court in May 2008 Justice Carol. A Corrigan mentioned that the doctors who used their religious delusions to justify their wanton bigotry could go into some other line of work. It is interesting to note that Justice Corrigan was one of the minority dissenters in the recently famous gay marriage ruling. It may be reasonable to expect that the court will find against the Jesus-brand bigots in this case.

Of course the doctors in this case wish to play the Christian martyr card. It seems that whenever a specific instance of Fundamentalist bigotry is not upheld by the normal people, Fundamentalists tend to run home crying about how much they are being abused.

In arguments before the court, attorney for the plaintiffs Jennifer Pizer
argued that exempting doctors from providing equal treatment violated existing case law and constitutional protections.

Doctors have the right to shape their practices according to their religious beliefs, Pizer argued, but they cannot deny treatment on a case-by-case basis. While doctors are allowed under the law not to offer in vitro fertilization as part of their practice, Pizer said, they cannot offer the service to some patients and deny it to others based on their evaluation of the patient's lifestyle.
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(link)

Jesus-brand bigotry does not seem to be having a good year in California. I predict great weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 
Loss Leader said:
So long as she'll issue the marriage licenses, I don't care as much. But, still, she is hardly a good example of a public servant.
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I agree... I'm sure there will be no shortage of people willing to perform marriage ceremonies of all those who have a license. Who cares who says the magic mumbo jumbo that makes it official? I just don't want to see my public servants deciding who gets serviced how based on the servants' personal moral principles.
 
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DoubtingStephen said:
The California Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that pits Jesus-brand bigotry against a perfectly innocent lesbian couple who sought fertility care at a medical clinic in San Diego County.

There are some principles under California law that would hand this case to the lesbian couple plaintiffs, if found to apply. For example it is illegal in California to discriminate against a person based on their perceived or actual sexual orientation in matters of employment or housing, and these laws do not feature any "but I'm a bigot" escape clause. These laws were especially designed and created to force the compliance of bigots.

For reasons that are fairly obvious, I have a personal preference for laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

During the arguments before the court in May 2008 Justice Carol. A Corrigan mentioned that the doctors who used their religious delusions to justify their wanton bigotry could go into some other line of work. It is interesting to note that Justice Corrigan was one of the minority dissenters in the recently famous gay marriage ruling. It may be reasonable to expect that the court will find against the Jesus-brand bigots in this case.

Of course the doctors in this case wish to play the Christian martyr card. It seems that whenever a specific instance of Fundamentalist bigotry is not upheld by the normal people, Fundamentalists tend to run home crying about how much they are being abused.

In arguments before the court, attorney for the plaintiffs Jennifer Pizer
(link)

Jesus-brand bigotry does not seem to be having a good year in California. I predict great weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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I admire California... I suspect they are leading the way toward our nations social progress and civil rights as they have in prior years.
 
Kopji said:
Good riddance. I don't think the government should be in the marriage ceremony business anyway. And I agree with the comment in the linked article, why would you want to be married by someone who hated you?

The license is the important thing, and you would still be married if a rowboat captain married you instead of a clerk or minister as long as you have the license.

I disagree with the entire argument that Kern Co would be losing $50,000 income a year. The clerk could be paid less because they are doing less, two rooms would be freed up for business work, and there would be an easy income opportunity for churches or private business to pick up the ceremony.
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Indeed. Traditionally, and also by definition, people marry each other - the official, religious or civil, doesn't do the deed. Marriage is a contract between two people making promises to each other for the benefit of themselves and their issue. The official is simply a witness that the contract has been offered and accepted mutually and according to the processes that they are officials for, and therefore it has force of the applicable legal and religious institutions.
 
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