Same sex-couples now have the right to marry in North Carolina, but are they entitled to be married by these two magistrates? No.
When the administrative office hired these two magistrates, they had no need to leave their religious liberties at their office door. Now that the law has changed, the AO has decided the magistrates no longer need their liberties. Same-sex couples are not entitled to pick and choose which magistrates will marry them. The AO can find another magistrate to perform the act.
The law does not say every magistrate has to perform this ceremony. The law says the ceremony is legal. Who performs it is another story.....at least that’s the way I read it.
I agree. It is odd to say that 2 magistrates with decades of faithful service are legal today, and then having changed absolutely nothing about themselves, say that they are illegal tomorrow.
There was absolutely no reason they could not have been accommodated.