Cboldt wrote:
“Why should one need a religious objection, to nullify an illegitimate edict?
Why would the state of Texas even put the clerks in a position of having to choose? The state is trying to have it both ways, follow the order as if it was legitimate, but allow individuals to steer clear of the state’s acquiescence.”
The religious objection law is needed because the clerks have —already— been put on the spot by this SCOTUS ruling.
Clerks who have religious objections need backup, while the legal gears in Texas are set in motion to push back on the ruling.
The other point was raised to illuminate that resolution of this constitutional crisis can take more than one path. The path selected, so far, is to pit individual religious liberty against the constitutional right to homosexual marriage. That approach adds legitimacy to the SCOTUS ruling, because it takes a view that there is a constitutional right to homosexual marriage. In other words, the path to resolution involves obedience to the law.
But if one adopts a point of view that the ruling is flat out wrong, illegitimate, or whatever you want to call it, and holds that there is no constitutional right to homosexual marriage, no matter what SCOTUS has to say on the subject, then the path to resolution looks like civil disobedience.