Yep.
Given the legal benefits and rights that marriage confers, government should absolutely be involved in saying who can legally marry, who can’t legal marry, why, and how those rights are protected for those eligible.
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Yeah, agree with YT, but there are certain things they shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate on.
Religious institutions should be free to turn down weddings at their place of worship or refuse to conduct the ceremony (priest/rabbi/etc.) for whatever Religious grounds they want.
Public employees preforming government functions don’t get the same ability to turn down anyone who meets the legal requirements. If they aren’t happy with that, they can quit their government job with government benefits and go apply for a job at their religious institution.
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Yep, agree completely.
Issuing licenses is not even a gray area. It clearly is a requirement of the job.
For me personally, I draw the line at anything that requires attendance at the actual wedding ceremony.
For example, I think a photographer or wedding coordinator or harp player should be allowed to refuse to attend (or watch over Zoom) the ceremony. This effectively means that they probably cannot take the job at all, unless it can reasonably be done subject to that constraint.
But baking a cake or catering at the reception almost never involves attending the ceremony. So those people don’t get to turn down the job.
Although, honestly, the receptionist at the church shouldn’t be free to reject a couple that the hierarchy of that church would accept. That’s what would be comparable to the town clerk refusing to process a wedding license that their state law allows.
Eh, that’s between the receptionist and the church. It’s not a government matter at that point.
Certainly the church should be allowed to fire her (for cause) for not doing the job they hired her to do. Or whatever other (legal) remedies they have for poor job performance.
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However, should the state be involved in saying “you two have/don’t have permission to marry” as opposed to laying out the basic criteria for a legal civil marriage and accepting registration only if those criteria are met?
I’ll agree that on a practical level, this is a difference in semantics…but I think it’s an important one philosophically.
Of course, I may have a bit of bias dating to earlier exposure to the subject. Before same-sex marriage was recognized in the US, there were a couple of states that sought to pass laws to make (I forget the exact terminology) “purporting to solemnify” marriages that didn’t comply with state statutes a crime.
As my religious views don’t really care about the plumbing of people being married, and I officiated at a couple of not-legally recognized weddings in one of those jurisdictions, I had a problem with that legislation.
Right, that’s a church matter. And a town clerk refusing to grant a marriage licence is a government matter.
The point is that there are people with authority to set the rules, and people whose job is to implement those rules, not to make up their own additional rules.
Yeah, I agree with that.
we talking about the US government here?
Yep. If you can’t do your job then you can’t have your job.
Obviously there’s a pile of legal exceptions there but it’s no different than a pharmacist refusing to dispense birth control - which also happens and is also bullshit.
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Yeah, I get the pharmacist objecting to birth control. That’s not bullshit (even though I completely disagree with that belief).
But dispensing birth control is a necessary part of the job of being a pharmacist, so if you can’t dispense birth control then you can’t have that job.
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Dusting off this thread, because she’s back in the news.
Source: Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling - ABC News (caution: audio/video automagically plays).