Posted on 09/27/2011 11:59:59 AM PDT by IbJensen
When the New York state legislature rammed through a law “legalizing” same-sex “marriage” this last summer, countless New Yorkers disagreed with the decision. Among them were Christian town clerks who could not in good conscience sign marriage licenses for a union they consider sinful.
Clauses were written in the law that supposedly protect clergy from being forced to act against their faith. However, such clauses do not apply to town clerks or any other government official.
Clerks are told point blank, either accept the law, or resign. Town clerk Rose Marie Belforti of Ledyard, New York found out the hard way. When the law passed, Belforti, a dairy owner and cheese maker, decided her Christian conscience would not allow her to sign same-sex “marriage” licenses. She did not deny them a license but merely asked that another official sign such licenses in her place. Since that other official is not always in, applicants are now asked to make an appointment.
When two applicants of the same sex did indeed ask for a license, the arrangement did not satisfy them. They were outraged by the inconvenience of making an appointment with the clerk’s substitute who now signs all licenses. The case has raised a tempest among the homosexual network nationwide. Indignant cries of religious bigotry and disregard for the law have been leveled against Rose Marie Belforti. Her dairy’s Facebook page now has abusive comments charging her with homophobia where once there were compliments about her bleu cheese.
In the sleepy town of less than 500 families, the local town clerk that normally issued ten licenses a year has been put in the national spotlight. Lawyers are threatening lawsuits against the unassuming dairy farmer. People for the American Way and the law firm Proskauer Rose are now co-representing the two applicants as they demand that Belforti either issue the marriage licenses against her conscience or resign. Online petitions are circulating asking that the clerk be dismissed.
Public officials can’t pick and choose the laws they want to follow,” cries an indignant Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way Foundation. “If a public official simply decides to shirk the obligations of her office, then she should resign and be replaced by someone who will do the job and carry out state law.”
Drew Courtney, a spokesman for People for the American Way points out: "She has a job to do. That job is to administer the paperwork and licenses of marriages in accordance with the state laws that govern it."
However, it seems the do-your-job-or-resign option only works one way. When it comes to the promotion of the homosexual cause, it appears officials can pick and choose which laws they want to defend. However, there is no indignation from offended liberals when these public officials refuse to do their job and carry out the law.
The most obvious case is the February decision of the Obama Administration’s decision that its Justice Department will no longer defend the constitutionality of Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) banning federal recognition of same-sex “marriage.” The House of Representatives was forced to assume the responsibility for defending the abandoned law signed by then-President Bill Clinton in 1996.
The constitutionality of laws is, of course, determined by the courts -- not by the executive branch. However, in this case favoring the homosexual agenda, it seems the public official can shirk the responsibility of the office and flatly refuse to defend the law of the land.
A second case in point is that of Proposition 8 in California. Voters across the state decided to amend the State Constitution and recognize marriage as between one man and one woman. Since the constitution is the law of the state, state officials are obliged to defend that law despite their personal opinions. However, when the amendment was challenged, then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown and then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to defend the amendment which is part of the State Constitution. Defenders of traditional marriage are now petitioning to ask if they can defend the disregarded rights of the majority that voted for Proposition 8.
In the case of Rose Marie Belforti, she has not refused to carry out the law or grant licenses. She merely delegated it to others. However, in the case of DOMA and Proposition 8, the elected executives have unilaterally decided not to uphold the present law. No one from People For the American Way is calling for these elected officials to resign.
There is a double standard here that must be addressed. Obviously the uproar in New York is not about the principle of law that is supposedly being transgressed. It is about an agenda that tramples upon the conscience of officeholders, disregards laws and constitutions and ignores the opinions of majorities. It is agenda that forces itself upon the nation and is definitely not part of the American Way.
Don’t like homosexual marriage? resign
Don’t like abortion or birth control? Resign
Don’t like handling pork?...uhhhh
Insist on wearing a head scarf?....uhhhh
Don’t like being in the same pool/gym/office as opposite sex?...uhhhh
I can’t wait to hear about the first muslim fired for refusing to perform homosexual marriage
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.” Gal 6:7-8
Pretty simple, actually.
Colonel, USAFR
I’m against same sex marriage, but I agree. If your conscience doesn’t allow you to do the job, the honorable thing to do is quit. The fact that Obama has decided not to enforce immigration laws doesn’t make it right for other officials to pick and choose what laws to follow.
“Drew Courtney, a spokesman for People for the American Way points out: “She has a job to do.”
So if an officer told a subordinate to shoot innocent civilians then Drew Courtney would be ok with that?
The Gaystapo knows no shame.
Is it ok for the state to use its police power to force people to call it marriage when that is the one thing it most definitely is NOT?
This the same sort of dumbness that once almost gave us a legislated value of "pi". But enough people saw through that one.
Homosexualists and statists, a match made in hell. She even made accomodations for someone else to sign the piece of paper saying the impossibilty is legit.
Freegards
“Is it ok for the state to use its police power to force people to call it marriage when that is the one thing it most definitely is NOT?”
I will call it “sodomite play-pretend marriage” even if they put me in front of a firing squad.
Mark Twain said that everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
This is not weather, folks. Things can be done.
“Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry a person that is Jewish to person who is Christian? Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry an interacial couple?”
You are equating a mental disorder characterized by a compulsion to engage in disgusting perversions with:
1. Religious conviction, and
2. Race.
Where would I draw the line? I don’t know exactly, but well before I got to that sort of lunatic idiocy.
“Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry a person that is Jewish to person who is Christian? Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry an interacial couple?”
You are equating a mental disorder characterized by a compulsion to engage in disgusting perversions with:
1. Religious conviction, and
2. Race.
Where would I draw the line? I don’t know exactly, but well before I got to that sort of lunatic idiocy.
Should we not “draw the line” somewhere?
Of course it's not "ok" that the state did this, but the fact is that the state has the legal (as opposed to the moral or ethical) power to do so, and it is the responsibility of town clerks to execute the laws as written.
Getting back to trumandogz's question - would you be OK with a Jewish town clerk refusing to sign certificates for a Jew marrying a non-Jew (since Judaism prohibits intermarriage)? How about a Catholic town clerk refusing to sign certificates where one or both of the applicants have been divorced?
Town clerks have limited (read: no) discretion in these matters for a reason - if you open the door to allowing public officials to shirk their duties under the law based on certain religious beliefs, how can you prevent other public officials from doing so with regards to other religious beliefs?
Dear Ms Belfori, your situation stinks on ice and I’m sorry to hear of it.
Here’s a suggestion: put on a hajib and threaten to sue them all for religious persecution.
Of course we should "draw the line" somewhere, and that somewhere should not allow perversions like same-sex "marriage." Unfortunately, the State of New York, acting through its elected officials, disagrees.
As to the town clerks, I believe that the proper place to "draw the line" is for the town clerks to execute the laws they are sworn to uphold. Allowing public officials to fail to execute the law because they disagree with it (no matter how much we agree with their disagreement with it) undermines the rule of law.
Should we not “draw the line” somewhere?
There is a line?
The people of New York State will have to change the law. But, until then the clerks will be forced to comply with the law, just as they were forced to comply with the law prior to the legalization of gay marriage.
It could take a civil war to, finally, end all of this ongoing and worsening “political correctness insanity”! The question is when, if ever?
Somehow they have managed to do it. Public officials have been bending the rules in favor of what amounts to no less than a religious view of the all-powerful state, in despite of the law, for most of my life. Apparently it's not a problem when the religion of secularism is the one so favored. Of course, that religion teaches that what the state calls marriage, IS marriage, but all that is meant is a sort of semipermanent legal arrangement.
Hey, they can call it marriage if they want, but then the mystical union between a man and a woman which has both a long pedigree and is recognized all over the world, would have to be called something else. Propose that, and see how far it flies.
Your examples don't serve you well, because both Catholics and Jews are long contributors to the theory and practice of marriage, and they definitely both consider that it can only exist between a man and a woman. Your hypothetical town clerk might suspect that a marriage can't exist between this particular man and woman, but that has always been the job of the couple, their families, and their friends to sort out, and in the America I remember, that's exactly what would happen,and the town clerk would know it. Only way they could handle it, since neither Catholics nor Jews are so monolithically consistent that they all agree what is a barrier to a marriage.
The people of New York need to change the law.
This town clerk in New York has no more a right to refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, than a town clerk Texas has a act against Texas law and issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry a person that is Jewish to person who is Christian? Would it be okay for a clerk to refuse to marry an interacial couple?
In a marriage license, if I'm not mistaken, there is no reference to any person's religion....therefore a clerk has no knowledge if she is signing off on a Jewish/Christian marriage or not. Besides that, even the strictest of religions see a homosexual "union" as MUCH worse than marrying outside one's faith. In any event, since no one in government has a right to know a person's religion...its immaterial to the clerk who cannot know that.
Except for perhaps the Arian Nations, NO recognized religion today understands cross-racial marriage as wrong. The bible and Church tradition are silent on that issue--condemnation of "miscegenation" as it was once called, was a pseudo-scientific theory, and a cultural practice, NOT religious (even if people tried to make it so).
A homosexual couple though is entirely obvious--and--has it's ethics fly in the face of 4,000 years of recorded ethics in the history in ALL cultures. Even the ancient Greeks, who fully accepted homosexual practice....never pretended homosexual unions were marriage.
To force someone to participate in something their ancient faith has ALWAYS condemned (and ALL forms of Christianity have--until liberal Protestants over the last 30 years became "smarter" than all that....) is a straight-up denial of religious freedom, plain and simple.
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