Posted on 04/22/2015 8:30:58 AM PDT by xzins
(Courthouse News) – Two former magistrates sued the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts claiming it violated their religious rights by forcing them to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies or face discipline, termination, and even criminal prosecution.
Gilbert Breedlove and Thomas Holland claim in a lawsuit filed in the Wake County Superior Court that they resigned from their positions after the AOC and its director, John Smith, made no attempt to accommodate their religious beliefs while attempting to comply with the change in law on same-sex marriage.
Instead, they say, the AOC forced them to choose between “taking an act that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs or being criminally prosecuted.”
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Faced with these options, Breedlove and Holland resigned “under duress.” They are now asking the court to reinstate them to their jobs.
Holland lives in Graham County, N.C. and served as a magistrate for almost 24 years until he resigned on November 1, 2014. In the lawsuit he says he professes and practices his religion as a Christian and has done so for all of his adult life. He was raised a Baptist and “believes that same-sex marriage violates the principles and edicts of his religion.” Therefore, “he sincerely believes that he cannot maintain his religious beliefs and simultaneously participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony.”
Breedlove, a former Marine, lives in Swain County, N.C. and served as a magistrate for about 24 years until he resigned on October 21, 2014. He too is a Christian and is a member of the New Testament Independent Missionary Baptist Church. Breedlove believes that participating in a same-sex marriage ceremony places him “at odds with his religious beliefs.”
After the federal courts issued an order declaring that it is unconstitutional for North Carolina not to recognize same-sex marriages, the AOC issued a statement that said, “Magistrates should begin immediately conducting marriages of all couples presenting a marriage license issued by the Register of Deeds.”
“A failure to do so would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution under the federal ruling,” Smith wrote, “and would constitute a violation of the oath and a failure to perform a duty of the office. For these reasons, all magistrates must treat same-sex marriages for which a marriage license has been issued by the Register of Deeds the same way that marriages between a man and a woman are scheduled and conducted.”
Smith said that if a magistrate refuses to perform same-sex marriages, then he or she could be suspended, removed from office, and potentially face criminal charges. Smith said the reason for the magistrate’s removal didn’t matter. In other words, there were no exemptions offered in the AOC’s policy for a magistrate to avoid participating in a same-sex marriage ceremony for any reason, religious or otherwise, the lawsuit says.
In a letter to N.C. Senator Phil Berger on November 5, 2014, Smith stated that “the AOC would not accommodate any magistrate who felt compelled to refuse to participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony for religious reasons and that any magistrate who attempted to avoid participating in a same-sex marriage ceremony could face civil liability.”
According to the complaint, Smith, “basically said that if a magistrate has a religious objection to participating in a same-sex marriage ceremony, the magistrate should resign.”
The N.C. Constitution, however, states that “all persons have a natural and inalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. . . . No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws; nor shall any person be subjected to discrimination by the State because of race, color, religion, or national origin.”
Holland and Breedlove’s faith is based on a “foundational belief that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman.” Therefore, according to the complaint, they “cannot participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony because doing so would force them to act in contravention of their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The plaintiffs asked the AOC to accommodate their religious beliefs in a way that would not force them to choose between violating their religious beliefs or resigning their position as a magistrate. The AOC, however, “made no effort to attempt to offer some alternative that would address Plaintiffs’ request.”
“Defendants have an obligation to perform their duties in a manner consistent with the North Carolina Constitution including not interfering with Plaintiffs’ rights protected by Article I, Section 13 and not discriminating against Plaintiffs on the basis of religion as prohibited by Article I, Section 19,” the complaint says.
As a result of the AOC’s refusal to accommodate, Holland and Breedlove were forced to resign. They now seek a declaration that the defendants’ direction and policy discriminated against them and violated Article I, Sections 13 and 19 of the N.C. Constitution.
Holland and Breedlove seek a determination by the court that they should be reinstated to their positions as magistrates with all back pay and lost benefits. They also seek a preliminary and permanent injunction, enjoining Smith and the AOC, and anyone acting in or on their behalf, from mandating that Holland and Breedlove must participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony without as much as an attempt to offer accommodation for them.
Plaintiffs’ lead counsel is Ellis Boyle of Raleigh, N.C.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/04/13/judges-say-gay-marriage-forced-them-out.htm
Breedlove sought every means of finding a work around that would not cause him to violate his religious beliefs. The state refused to work with him.
He was fully qualified for his job one day and the previous 2 decades, and the next day with absolutely no change in himself he would have been a criminal.
How’s that for justice?
They don’t seem to get that THE POINT IS
to make you violate your religious beliefs.
Many of us kept stating how if we allowed homosexual marriage then this would happen just like we warned about letting homosexuals into the boy scouts as they would molest boys and they have.
We were told off the radical left, ignorant folk, and the deniers that it was their so called rights to marry and others told us that we were being stupid and the Govt should not stop them from marrying
Exactly.
This sham of a marriage should never have been forced onto the public and now the whole goal is clear form the homosexuals and their supporters.
Take away the founding of this country, 1st amendment, and attack Christians.
The whole underlying agenda of the left is to destroy Christian influence in the world.
That wasn’t obvious to me until rather recently,
but everything the do and believe now makes sense
in a way that it never did before I came to that realization.
The left has no problem using coercion to get their way.
ping
I hear you.
Years ago I had no problem with homosexuals. Hell if they kept it in their bedroom then it is their business.
My wife and I with my first son who was young back then took a walk through Boston gardens and we turned a corner as we saw a parade.
It was a homosexual parade and I felt sick to the stomach after just five seconds because what we saw.
Homosexual women dressed as nuns touching each other on a float and making out. Men in daisy duke PVC shorts with their asses hanging out.
We left there right away as that was disgusting and it was that day what made me wake up about them. As the years have gone by I see the attacks on Christians increase ten fold and not one media outlet like Hannity can take their cameras and show their viewers what their homosexual friends, neighbors etc are really like.
Ping
I agree with these magistrates' opinion/beliefs on same-sex marriage. BUT, their religious freedom argument is wrong (and dangerous). To the extent they were acting in their official capacity as a magistrate, they were acting on behalf of the government, not themselves, so their personal religious beliefs should play no role in how they carry out their official duties.
Gilbert Breedlove is a doctoral level Baptist minister and a participant in the Choctaw translation of the bible. His son, Joshua, a graduate of Dartmouth and the UofColorado School of Law, is a tribal lawyer for the Choctaw Tribe in Mississippi.
They say that according to the North Carolina Constitution they suffered discrimination. Did you read the North Carolina Constitution’s relevant sections?
Yes. The relevant sections are, in essence, the equivalent of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution, and say that all persons have the right to right to worship as they choose, and be free of discrimination based on their religion.
The point is, there is a distinction between how one acts as a private citizen, and how one acts as a representative of the state. The state itself has no religious beliefs. So, a magistrate who is acting in his/her official capacity, is acting as an agent of the state—that is, without religious beliefs—not in their individual role (with their individual religious beliefs). Saying that the magistrate may not act based on their own religious beliefs while acting in their official capacity does not infringe on the magistrate’s religious freedoms.
First, the constitution also says there can be no religious test for holding any public office. So, you cannot keep a person out by virtue of their religion.
Second, there is a requirement to accommodate, and this state refused to accommodate. It was pretty easy for them to have county offices schedule in a magistrate who would perform a certain act rather than threaten a magistrate who had been a fully legal and faithful employee for decades.
Sounds exactly like what the Nazis did to the Jews!
And today, it is what the liberal demoncrats (with the support of many RINOs) are doing to Christians...
“He was fully qualified for his job one day and the previous 2 decades, and the next day with absolutely no change in himself he would have been a criminal.”
Force those dirty Christians out of work. Round ‘em up. Send them to the camps. That will teach ‘em.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, A__holes. Let's see how you like it.
???
I’m not following you.
[[The whole underlying agenda of the left is to destroy Christian influence in the world.]]
They used to be very coy about an agenda that they kept hidden, but now that they have the complete support of the msm, the _resident, and the left, and the courts- they are no longer even bothering to be coy and are blatantly attacking religion in a seething hateful manner on full display for everyone to see- they no longer care their agenda has been exposed- and they are hell bent on forcing their depravity and filth on society in violation of our right to freely practice our religious beliefs
Things are going to get much much worse for Christians I n the following years now that there is nothing holding the gay agenda back any longer- We have only just begun to see the hatred and vile vitriol of these satanically driven sinners
Imagine being Jewish Judge in Nazi Germany and trying to win some legal case against the Nazi’s.
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