...someone up thread said somewhat the same thing. I’m not convinced the judge is that smart. I want to hear it directly from his lips not ours. I’m quite sure had that angle been introduced, two things might have taken place. First, two wrongs don’t make a right, heard in Federal court by myself in attendance at a bogus trial on petition gathering at a US Post Office. The other was the “out” wherein the Judge rules the evidence irrelevant.
I agree, the judge just isn’t smart.
He ordered the deputy clerk’s to issue licenses. Which they can’t do under their own signatures at all or under a facsimile of the clerk’s signature without her permission.
The judge even said there was a risk that he was ordering them to produce invalid licenses.
If he was smart, he would have ordered her jailed. Left the deputy clerk’s out of it. Put the burden on the political process to resolve the matter while she sat in jail. Unfair, unfortunate and unpleasant for the clerk, but that is what standing by your conscience now requires.
So now these couples will be married under legally invalid licenses. Which will be subject to all sorts of legal challenges, some possibly based on fraud and forgery.