Californian exclusive: Clerk went to great lengths to get out of same-sex ceremonies

The Bakersfield Californian ^ | 6/5/08 | Staff

[umgud]

Kern County Auditor-Controller-County Clerk Ann Barnett repeatedly tried to avoid licensing and performing marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, interviews and e-mails obtained by The Californian show.

At her request, County Counsel Bernard Barmann filed a brief with the California Supreme Court opposing implementation of the May 15 ruling allowing gay marriage.

She tried to resign her elected position as county clerk — while keeping her positions as auditor-controller and elections boss. “She really wanted to get rid of it,” Barmann said.

And finally, when the ruling came down Wednesday that she had to license same-sex marriages, she decided to stop performing all weddings. That involved canceling 25 heterosexual ceremonies that had been scheduled after June 13, according to her staff.

To read more of this story, click on the headline above.

[El Cid]

Framing homosexual marriage as wrong because it is an abomination to God doesn’t mean much to many people because they are Godless.

Your point is legitimate.
Nonetheless, I'll continue to oppose the Godless slide in our Country, and frame the argument in that manner. I don't want our endpoint destination to be Western Europe. They started their descent into Godlessness 100+ years ago. God turned them over to their blindness, and they became susceptible to the lies of an Adolf Hitler, and are now awaiting dhimmi-hood...(I hope I'm wrong - but it looks like they are headed that way).

[A message]

Framing homosexual marriage as wrong because it is an abomination to God doesn’t mean much to many people because they are Godless.

Conservatives need to frame their resistance to homosexual marriage in other terms.

I agree with your premise.

I frame it so even the dumbest socialist could understand.

The State is not in the business of love.

The State recognizes marriage between and man and a women because that is the only way the State can assure it's continuance, that is through propagation and a stable platform to raise children.

Homosexual relations provide no continuance of the State. Therefore there is no benefit to the State to encourage or reward homosexual relations.

In a sane world even a Bolshevik should understand.

[clee1]

Since May 28, 2008

I think you buddies at DU miss you.

[AnalogReigns]

Marriages between different tribes was also once considered an abomination before “God.”

At least that’s the argument so many used to deny different races the right to marry one another in this country for a very long time.

Yep, and people have defended and promulgated all sorts of destructive things in the name of religion--however, its quite a logical leap to imply therefore ALL religious arguments (and therefore all religious ethics?) as a crock, and worthless in the public square. The civil rights movement itself, going back to the abolitionist movement before Lincoln--were openly Christian values movements, and their leaders were primarily men and women of faith.

The foundation of ethics for the great majority of Americans of faith is the bible. One cannot find one word of justification to call miscegenation "an abomination" in scripture--those who claimed that years ago were talking in their hats--which is why that idea was abandoned more than a generation ago, by the vast majority of Christians.

Scripture does have a LOT to say though about right and wrong in sexual ethics however--and even down to the scholarly level--despite lame and ignorant arguments to the contrary--it is unambiguous in condemning homosexual behavior--as an equal perversion to incest and bestiality--in both Old and New Testaments: Sexual ethics were after all one issue that before the 1960s ALL Christian denominations agreed about...for millennia. More than that all major religions, not just the Judeo-Christian ones, not being naive, condemned homosexual behavior--until the baby boomers got horny.

Just because people used a false bad argument--calling it religious--in the past for racist purposes, does not make ancient sexual religious morals the same thing, and suspect to being labeled bigotry.

[dr_lew]

O Father of our city, whence came such wickedness among thy Latin shepherds? How did such a lust possess thy grandchildren, O Gradivus? Behold! Here you have a man of high birth and wealth being handed over in marriage to a man, and yet neither shakest thy helmet, nor smitest the earth with thy spear, nor yet protestest to thy Father? Away with thee then; begone from the broad acres of that Martial Plain which thou hast forgotten!

Juvenal, Satire II

[Hildy]

God is watching.

[fwdude]

The first of many casualties due to this nonsense...

Yes, along with the right of normal men and women to be officially called by the State "husband" and "wife", "bride" and "groom."

He who controls the language, controls the culture.

[antceecee]

Is this your cute way of calling me a hypocrite?

[newzjunkey]

The State recognizes marriage between and man and a women because that is the only way the State can assure it's continuance, that is through propagation and a stable platform to raise children.

First, proof of fertility is not a requirement for marriage. Second, the 20th century brought us artificial insemination (including lesbians giving birth) and later adoptions by homosexual couples. These REALITIES shred apart your argument.

The SECULAR STATE recognizes marriage so there's a legal relationship with regards to rights, responsibilities and inheritance.

Last night I was thinking back to a family story that a set of my grandparents could not marry in their state because my grandfather was divorced. They married in a neighboring state instead and that marriage was recognized in their home state despite it being at odds with the rules in place for unions within it at the time. I believe this was in the 1920's.

My ONLY concern is whether courts will decide legal marriages cannot be presided over by religious who refuse to perform homosexual weddings. I don't know the body of law behind the "extra" rules a church may have about use of its facilities such as pre-marital counseling sessions with the minister.

I don't care what pair gets married so long as they do so of their own free will.

[newzjunkey]

The new licenses simply say “Party A” and “Party B” in a very clinical, legalistic fashion.

[wardaddy]

good lord...what rock did you crawl out from under to come play here

equating homo-marriage with interracial marriage is one of the oldest social engineering canards we see around here

i fear your stay amongst clarity and sanity will be brief

[SunkenCiv]

And finally, when the ruling came down Wednesday that she had to license same-sex marriages, she decided to stop performing all weddings. That involved canceling 25 heterosexual ceremonies that had been scheduled after June 13

[Yaelle]

I just thought of this myself yesterday. Of course no religious cleric can possibly be forced to perform a same sex marriage. But now all judges and justices of the peace CAN be forced. I can imagine a lot of older people in the smaller counties will be quitting their positions.

[Marie2]

There’s going to be a whole lot of forcing going on.

Forcing wedding photographers to take photos of the lez wedding or face a lawsuit.

Forcing a church to rent the sanctuary to a homo wedding or face a lawsuit.

Forcing a floral business to do the flowers for a gay wedding or face a lawsuit.

Facing a cake decorator to bid on the cake or face a lawsuit.

Forcing a band to play at a gay wedding reception or face a lawsuit.

Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

[fwdude]

The new licenses simply say “Party A” and “Party B” in a very clinical, legalistic fashion.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, unless you are blind to the reality of the implications of this change. You can't get more explicit and "clinical" than using the well-understood, time-honored terminology of "bride" and "groom" as the union of one man and one woman.

"Parties?" Can't this also mean plural marriages? Marriages between whatever and whatever? What a PC load of crap. You entirely miss the point that the homo-activist have succeeded, at least for now, in denying the natural, traditional legal titles to the parties of a marriage. Or maybe you don't.

[fwdude]

Of course, gay marriage won't affect you if you're not gay. /sarc

[RobbyS]

Marriage between a black man and a white women is like a stallion mounting a mare. A marriage between two men or between two women is something else.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Hold your breath until I care what the California Supreme Court thinks...

[Maelstorm]

It is nice she stood up for what is right. Far too many bureaucrats are gutless spineless things much like Mitt Romney was in Massachusetts when he ordered clerks to issue marriage licenses.

[fr_freak]

First, proof of fertility is not a requirement for marriage. Second, the 20th century brought us artificial insemination (including lesbians giving birth) and later adoptions by homosexual couples. These REALITIES shred apart your argument.

Marriage is, and always has been, an institution. It is more than a mere set of legal rights. It is a social construct designed to offer the best chances for both the children and for the society of which the family is a part. This institution has specific components, a man and a woman as husband and wife, just as a house has a foundation and a frame. Whether the marriage ever produces children does not matter; while the marriage is as it was designed - one man and one woman living as partners - it promotes marriage overall. However, if you change the design of that institution, if you substitute other components, such as replacing the woman with another man, you build a weak foundation, and the house will fall.

That is the difference between childless marriage and this ridiculous charade known as "gay marriage": one maintains and promotes the building of the strong family unit, whether it produces one or not, while the other redesigns it, thereby ensuring its destruction.