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.
“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.
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?