Posted on 06/30/2015 6:53:51 AM PDT by GIdget2004
[Title shortened for space limitations]
The Jindal administration issued a memo Tuesday (June 29) advising state government agencies to respect the religious beliefs of workers who don't support same-sex marriage.
"[A]ppropriate accommodations may be made for state employees who express a religious objection to involvement in issuance of same-sex marriage licenses, and judges and justices of the peace may not be forced to officiate a same-sex wedding ceremony when other authorized individuals who have no religious objection are available," wrote Thomas Enright, Jindal's executive counsel, in the memo.
All Louisiana court clerks could soon be expected to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and state workers will be involved in supporting the unions in other ways. Many same-sex couples are expected to start filing amended state tax returns and trying to get adoption paperwork updated to reflect their legal marriages. State workers would have to facilitate those changes.
Yet even the Jindal administration acknowledged in Enright's memo that there are likely limits on state worker protections when it comes to same-sex marriage. Louisiana's top state lawyer, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, declined to comment on whether government workers could avoid supporting same-sex couples' marriages if their jobs required it.
"The facts of any such case may affect the strength of the individual's accommodation claims," Enright wrote in the Jindal administration's memo.
Tulane University Law School professor Keith Werhan said court clerks and other state workers might be able to avoid working on same-sex marriages if someone else can easily perform those duties for them. But state workers won't be able to cite religious objections as an excuse for not serving same-sex couples if it thwarts or slows down access to a legal marriage.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
When government gets out of the business of defining and regulating marriage, then no government worker has to violate his conscience to carry out the duties of his office.
And when marriage is a private matter once again, the Pink Swastika crowd cannot force anyone to bake a cake they don’t want to. So citizens can live in peace and not worry they will lose their business or hauled before some government agency for hurting someone’s feelings.
Once again, the ONLY proper response by a Governor is an immediate directive to County Clerks NOT to issue ANY deviant marriage licenses, period. This from a supposed “Christian”. It’s no wonder we are where we are today.
Just force your whole state to roll over for 5 freaks in black robes.
You don’t become governor anymore without making a zillion little compromises along the way. Pragmatism: the official philosophy of the America politician.
Yeah, I'm done with compromise. Politicians want "compromise"? Then they are no friend to America.
Conservatives have the burden of fighting for what’s right. Leftist don’t. Because of that, as soon as a conservative compromises just a little, they admit they never thought their positions were absolutely right. There are obviously areas where one can compromise, but just a matters of degrees, not on issues. And the compromises should always be toward an end that is fundamentally conservative.
Mealy-mouthed protestations to the contrary, the official position of the state of Louisiana is that the SCOTUS decision is legitimate, and superior to the freedom to exercise religion.
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