| Municipal clerks in New York may refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples or refuse to marry them, whether or not additional "carve out" provisions are inserted into the upcoming Marriage Equality bill.
Under proposed language specified by GOP State Senator Greg Ball of Putnam County, clerks and other municipal officials can hide behind a "religious protections" clause if they find gay marriage an affront to their beliefs.
The addendums that Ball wants to insert in the bill are unclear and ambiguous, perhaps purposely so. They could provide a loophole for mayors, supervisors, clerks, and county executives to act in contempt of their sworn duties, and keep gay marriage in the courts for years to come. |
The exemptions asked for by Ball are below (with boldface added be me for accentuation).
1) No clergy or other person authorized to conduct marriage ceremonies shall be required to do so against their beliefs or desire, whether religious or not.
2) No religious or tax exempt organizations shall be required to provide any services to which they object because of religious or other beliefs.
3) No house of worship, individual or business with religious objections, or tax exempt organizations shall be required to allow their property or services to be used for any function or purpose to which they object or have their tax exempt status challenged or removed because of failure to permit usage of their property for same sex ceremonies.
Even without Ball's specific language, carve outs in the bill, as it stands, are worrisome. They also allow for discrimination by individuals and institutions.
If you think that it's unlikely that municipal officials will refuse to cooperate with new marriage equality laws, think again. Recently, conservative pundit and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, called on municipal clerks in Iowa (where gay marriage is recognized) to risk losing their jobs by standing with their religious objections. As as a blog called "Manic Squirrel" points out, Huckabee's objections fly in the face of The Bible:
[Huckabee] clearly ignores a foundational teaching by the apostle Paul in Romans 13: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."
The ultraconservative Heritage Foundation is also pushing for "conscience rights," which they call the "new front line in the culture war." This is a definite sign that Conservatives know that the legislative battles over gay marriage is all but lost. The new conservative tactic is to play the victim by claiming that gay rights are limiting the rights of those that object to them. In fact, Senator Ball's conscience clauses mimic the foundation's surreptitious effort to limit rights under the guise of protecting them.
Equality Matters, an LGBT rights campaign, points out how religious exemptions might undermine gay marriage:
[T]hey're perversely trying to frame their oppressive agenda as the preservation of freedom. Heritage, for example, describes the legalization of same-sex marriage as "government overreach," a threat to "liberty," and an example of the government becoming "increasingly intrusive in society's moral deliberations."
How does Heritage justify describing the removal of government barriers to a loving couple freely deciding to marry as a threat to liberty? Simple: Heritage worries that if gays are allowed to marry, florists who hate gays might face sanction if they discriminate against gay customers who want flowers for their wedding. Seriously.
The Heritage foundation isn't the only wingnut organization trying to protect the rights of bigots to discriminate against gays. New York's own Conservative Party has drawn a line in the sand, over gay marriage.
"In order to get the endorsement of the Conservative Party, one of the deal breakers is traditional marriage," [Michael R.] Long said in an interview last week. "You say 'I'm not for traditional marriage,' you're not going to get our endorsement. It's as simple as that."
Currently, the Conservative Party has promised to withhold support for any state legislator that votes in favor of gay marriage; it's not a big leap to believe that will use their permanent position on New York ballots in order to push their agenda onto elected municipal officials.
"Conscience rights," the new conservative battleground on gay marriage resembles legal protections given to medical professionals over abortion and the distribution of perscribed birth-control pharmaceuticals, like the "morning after" pill. Loopholes in federal and state laws have allowed Republican-controlled legislatures to inject their beliefs into the lives and decisions of individuals. Now that such laws are in place in several states, what's to stop legislation designed to deny life-extending medical care to those with HIV/AIDS, if a medical provider believes the disease is the wrath of God. And what's to prevent a racist or anti-Semite restaurant owner from keeping Jews or blacks from being served?
Mine is not a slippery slope argument. During his campaign for Senate in Kentucky, Republican Rand Paul spoke out against the government making it illegal for businesses to racially discriminate, claiming that it is a 1st Amendment violation to require them to serve blacks, or any other race or religious group.
And it is not unprecedented for municipal clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. In California, gay marriage was challenged by a county clerk who objected to such unions. The clerk, Chuck Storey, even asked to become the primary defendant in the lawsuit to uphold Proposition 8, a ballot resolution which banned gay marriage in the state.
In fact, the Campaign for Children and Their Families, a wholesale anti-gay lobbying group in California, has equated the issuing of gay marriage licenses to mindless compliance during the Holocaust.
Ask your county clerk if they were a Nazi officer during WWII and had been ordered to gas the Jews, would they?
Note: Campaign for Children and Their Families has taken down the blog post with this statement from their website, Save California.
The examples in this piece are not cherry picked from extremist conservative organizations and individuals. Bigotry, in the guise of conscience rights, is being pushed hard by the Tea Party and is the new prevailing theme in Republican social dogma. As such, we should not take this movement lightly. Although elected officials, clerks are not commonly regarded as ideology-driven policy makers. However, in light of recent developments, we should not dismiss their political allegiances, as some may be running point for the radical right's social agenda.
This article is cross posted at Left of the Hudson. |
