Posted on 10/23/2014 2:38:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A North Carolina county judge resigned on Monday because he did not want to violate his Christian faith and perform same-sex marriages, which are now permitted under the state's law.
With the news that North Carolina's same-sex marriage ban was struck down by a federal judge on Oct. 10, Judge Gilbert Breedlove, a 57-year-old magistrate in Swain County and also an ordained minister, could not, in good faith, be forced to conduct same-sex courthouse weddings when his Christian belief tells him that a marriage is only between a man and a woman.
"It was my only option," Breedlove told Citizen-Times. "We were directed we had to perform the marriages, and that was just something I couldn't do because of my religious beliefs."
Although Breedlove has been a magistrate for the past 24 years, he said the law, which judges are responsible for interpreting, no longer stands with his beliefs.
"I was Christian when I started," Breedlove said. "Then, the law didn't require me to perform something that was against my religious belief. Now that law has changed it's requirements."
Although Breedlove could claim he had two jobs as a pastor and a magistrate, the majority of his income came from his judgeship. However, he said he is not worried about his financial future because he put his full faith in the Lord.
"That's one of the things about being a Christian," Breedlove said. "You are able to serve the Lord and the Lord will provide."
The Bryson City community in which Breedlove served, is located next to a Cherokee Indian reservation and his wife was even raised a Cherokee. Breedlove's affinity for Jesus and Native Americans led him to help translate the Bible into the Choctaw Indian language. Having been a part of the Bible translation effort and being a part-time pastor, Breedlove said he is confident in the biblical truth about marriage.
"The whole Bible from front to end states that a marriage is between a man and a wife," he said. "Any other type of sexual activity other than that is what is defined as fornication."
With previous reports indicating that other North Carolina magistrates have also stepped down due to their objection to the state's new law permitting same-sex marriages, Breedlove said he believes more magistrates will continue stepping down as more same-sex couples look to wed by Christian magistrates. The state has issued over 600 same-sex wedding licenses in 60 of the state's counties.
Last Thursday, a Rockingham County magistrate named John Kallam Jr. issued his resignation and claimed that allowing gay marriage "would desecrate a Holy Institution established by God Himself."
"When I took my oath of office, I understood I would be required to perform weddings and have done so throughout my tenure," Kallam wrote in his resignation letter. "I did not however take that oath with any understanding that I would be required to marry same-sex couples."
Chris Sgro, executive director of Equality North Carolina, a statewide LGBT advocacy group, group said that although the group doesn't want judges to feel like they have to resign if they disapprove of the law, he said they at least be willing to uphold the duties required by law.
"This is part of an effort to hype up a few small cases," Sgro said. "If you hold a job or position that serves the public or the state, then you have to carry out the duties of that job. Hundreds and hundreds of people are being married by employees of the state across North Carolina with no problem."
Wrong. Anarchy is judges violating their oaths and trying to make laws from the bench.
According to our constitutions, only the legislative branch gets to do that. And even then, those laws must be constitutional and moral to be of any effect.
“One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.
...Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. ...A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law.
I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail
“Hence also, the origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent? To usurp dominion over a people, in their own despite, or to grasp at more extensive power than they are willing to entrust, is to violate that law of nature, which gives every man the right to his personal liberty; and can, therefore, confer no obligation to obedience.”
“When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void.”
— Alexander Hamilton
“Good and wise men, in all ages...have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensably, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever...This is what is called the law of nature, which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.”
— William Blackstone
“[T]he Law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions must . . . be conformable to the Law of Nature, i.e., to the will of God. [L]aws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made.”
— John Locke, Two Treatises on Government
Fight to the death.
“’Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,’ in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.”
— Samuel Adams, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772
As we take the time to sort out the implications of the ongoing state-by-state attack on marriage, with the courts the primary culprits, I believe that most of us are still in the learning phase when it comes to the powers of the executive and legislative branches to check the judiciary.
Given the importance of the matter, anything and everything should be constitutionally explored to preserve our good inheritance for future generations.
Our federalist system was designed to preserve that inheritance as long as possible. When a state takes a blow in a manner destructive of its constitutional institutions, the federal government is most especially obliged to act.
We cannot lose sight of Article IV in the U.S. Constitution. Section 4 requires that the states (and the people) retain the ability to make laws to govern themselves. We read:
“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government[.]”
This means, for instance, that an oligarchy of any sort is prohibited in the states. None but a state-by-state republic is permitted or guaranteed. And we know the word “guarantee” is a legal term, that carries with it the expectation of power and obligation to enforce the promise made.
The federal government is the body charged in Article IV with direct obligatory oversight, as an extra layer of protection to liberty, in order to secure the ability of the people in each state to make laws in their republic.
No branch of government anywhere, whether at the state or federal level, has the constitutional authority to impose oligarchical rule upon the body of the people. Nor does the Constitution tie our hands, or the hands of the chief executive and legislature, when the states are under attack. In its full context, Article IV, Section 4, explicitly names the executive and legislative branches as the chief instruments charged to provide ultimate protection to the states, to fulfill the purpose of federalism in the Constitution:
“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”
When it comes to judicially-imposed radicalism, the Founders did not leave us without recourse. The federal government, in particular the executive and legislative branches, is bound by contract to make good on the republican guarantee of Article IV.
We are designed to be a nation of law, not of caprice. And “we the people” fought a revolution against tyrannical caprice just for the opportunity to make law in harmony with the laws of nature. If we look more closely at the legal instrument our Founders created, we see that they did not leave us unprotected. All we have lacked in modern times is the election of individuals who are wise and courageous enough to uphold their oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Thank you for this well thought out and crafted reply. I enjoyed reading it FRiend
Interesting. The good guys are leaving so bad guys can take over.
In colonial Massachusetts, when George III under the Intolerable Acts required all judges to receive their appointment from him instead of the Colony of Massachusetts,
the colonists assembled and removed ALL JUDGES from the bench who refused to step down aND be reappointed by the Colony.
But back then the colonists were MEN who believed THEY owned their country and government, NOT a horde of royal bureaucrats and an arrogant tyrant.
How things have changed.
You’re welcome. I hope it helps.
#47 was written by my brilliant wife, Siena. Sorry, I hit post before attributing it properly. Sometimes I regret that FR has no edit function.
This is her PS to that still-timely bit of writing:
P.S. On the question of federal involvement in marriage, you may take a look at the Utah Enabling Act of 1894, in which Congress required the prohibition of polygamy for statehood. The Act fulfilled the obligation of Article IV, Section 2, to put the new state of Utah on equal footing with the original states. Article IV, Section 2, requires: “The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”
Civil recognition of marriage between a man and wife is one of the primary privileges of a civil society. Inescapably, the federal government has the authority and duty to safeguard the exercise of that privilege for every state, in order to constitutionally “insure domestic tranquility.”
For domestic tranquility’s sake, the federal government maintains the power to oversee a singly exclusive form of marriage in all of the states, to thereby defend for posterity the natural obligations owed by parentage.
P.P.S. No matter its use, the word “domestic,” Latin for “house,” is inseparable from the idyllic concept of family life: father, mother, child. Even in the national sense, the word “domestic” alludes to family. As Webster’s 1828 dictionary puts it, “Domestic . . . 4. Pertain[s] to a nation considered as a family.” So it is that domestic violence hits us closest to home. I cannot help but think of Article IV, Section 4, in the context of abortion: a domestic violence in the closet possible place—the womb.
It seems to be the conservative way to resign or quit when something like this happens. Just like the boy scouts, lots of good people left in disgust including me and my boys. I have been thinking that this may be what the progs want us to do...submit like a bunch of surrendermonkeys.
North Carolina was one of the first states to legalize no-fault divorce (in 1965, well before even California)— the slippery slope which started the degradation of traditional marriage and which has lead us to the cesspool we find ourselves in today.
Well, there’s a big difference between the Boy Scouts, which is a private association, and a judgeship.
You can bail out of a private association and just let it die of its own compromise.
But we can’t bail out of America, or out of our citizenship. Not really. In this day and age, there really is nowhere to run and hide.
We either stand or fight, or liberty dies.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The mil today is not the mil years ago.
Kids raised by TV, schools and media the last 20 years are now in the mil and though there are still great men and women in the mil, there are many that I will never trust.
It is a completely different world today and New Think is in everything. The military, the govt, churches, schools.
Doublethink is doubleplusungood
/s
I’ve been in since 86, and I’d trust most of the people in the military to do the right thing. Yes, things are bad, and the military reflects that decline to a point, but to a lesser degree than the general population. There are few willing to volunteer and sacrifice anymore and everyone in today’s military has done just that.
So... there is no “law established by the legislature” in North Carolina as you originally claimed.
“but to a lesser degree than the general population”
I agree with the above. But realize, nothing is sacred anymore and evil is seeping into everything today, even those institutions that were noble (like the mil, the church, education).
Heck, maybe I’m wrong, but wasn’t the FBI a noble agency? Now they are pawns of Holder’s DOJ.
When 60,000 people blocked the doors of abortion clinics, from 1975 to 1992, only three or four cops in the entire country resigned rather than make arrests. All the others carried out orders which were orders to collaborate in abortions.
(If a woman is trying to get into an abortion clinic, and anyone helps her to do so by removing some obstacle, then that person is an accomplice. This is true in the case of any crime.)
I am not telling any lies, and I am not taking a “leftist” position.
Obola has done his best to purge the military of any officers who will not fire on American citizens.
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