Via Pam's House Blend, we find that many Iowa judges are opting out of performing marriages entirely to avoid having to marry same-sex couples. This has, not surprisingly, called on the Alliance Defense Fund to begin offering legal services to those who still wish to perform only hetero marriages based on their "religious beliefs." Says ADF:
"Government employees who believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Doug Napier. "This policy allows an employee who does not wish to violate his or her own conscience by issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple to abstain and allow the transaction to be performed by someone who is willing to do it. Forcing them to participate in offensive acts contrary to their deeply held beliefs in order to remain employed is unconstitutional."
This comes less than a month after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, so we were expecting some folks to be up in arms. However, it's the first case I've heard of where the "right to conscience" nonsense that anti-choice pharmacists (and Bush) have been pushing for years has managed to seep into another "issue" of the conservative plight.
At least the judges who opt out of performing all marriages know what the deal is - after all, they are servants of the law and know better. But any judge who shacks up with the ADF to use religion as a means of discriminating who they think should be married needs a serious head (and career) check.
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"Forcing them to participate in offensive acts contrary to their deeply held beliefs in order to remain employed is unconstitutional."
What Constitution are they reading?! Do they just treat "something we don't support" with "unconstitutional" and hope no one notices?
Un-fucking-believably stupid. I can just see teachers in the '50s and '60s South claiming it was "against their conscience" to teach black children, and judges claiming it's "against their conscience" to marry interracial couples, so they should get to abstain from it. After all, the rhetoric goes that they're "biologically" different, no?
Where do we draw the line?
I've heard some "funny" analogies before like a Jewish person that won't ring up Christmas tree ornaments, or a Muslim person who won't ring up your beef jerky.
I honestly do not understand how they determine which "offensive acts contrary to their deeply held beliefs" are valid, and which are not.
How is it constitutional to deny me a legal product or service, simply because you don't feel like it?
Rachel Maddow called it the 'Amish bus driver' rule. "If your religion requires you not to drive, cool beans, free country—but then you can‘t get hired to be a bus driver if your religion won‘t let you drive the bus."
Being a judge means exercising discretion and unbiased decisions. If your job is to interpret and apply the law, then you have to interpret and apply the law of the government for which you judge on the behalf of. You don't like the laws? Well, there's a different branch of government to which you should send your resume. Until then -- DO YOUR JOB.
THIS. As a resident of Iowa, I'm feeling pretty damn embarrassed about these judges right now. No one is denying theme the right to their own opinions, but they don't get to change the law.
I think one above example was spot-on: as a teacher, I could never refuse to teach a student because they were black, white, Jewish, whatever, and if I refused to, I would fully expect to get fired for not performing my job.
As far as I'm concerned, if somebody feels incapable of performing the duties of their job (teaching, judging, whatever) because of their own prejudices, it's time to find a replacement.
There have been some cases of this in Canada, and the rhetoric has been really similar to the contraception issue: "Oh, well I referred them to someone else, so it doesn't really hurt them."
As frustrating as all this kind of bullshit is, the thing I keep in my mind is that they have already lost. Young people, even evangelical christians, just don’t care about this issue the way their older counter parts do.
It’s still a fight we have to wage, but we’ve won the war.
I find it ironic that those claiming morality is behind their bigotry are so lacking in morality.
Their family values must be Aryan Nation Family Values.
I just read some bullshit by Tony Perkins attacking hate crimes laws saying they could silence ministers and I thought of similar ministers in Iraq who think it is moral to surgically glue the anuses of gays and then dose them on laxatives so that they die horrible deaths.
Then I thought of the relationship between their teachings and the beliefs of the punk who murdered Angie Zapata. Same ideology wearing different clothes.
There is actually a movement in my community for liberal clergy to refuse to perform civil marriages (they will still perform the religious ceremonies; they just won't sign the state documents) because gay marriage is not legal in my state.
That's admirable.
Every thread about abortion on this site has tons of comments along the lines of "I personally don't feel that abortion is OK, but we should never force our own personal morality on others."
Fine. But now you're trying to force your own morality about marriage on others. I agree that gay marriage should be legal, but you can't have your cake and eat it to. If morality is strictly a private, personal affair, then gay marriage or gay adoption or whatever else is also a private affair, and you should respect the rights of others to their own morality. The judges in question personally don't believe in gay marriage and who are you to tell them otherwise. You guys are being "anti-choice" on this issue.
But if it isn't simply a private affair, if morality involves others, if extreme individualism is too shallow a philosophy, if 'choice' is not actually the highest goal of human life, then we need to stop avoiding the hard work of actually arguing about whether abortion is right or wrong.
A law was passed. Judges apply the law. Not marrying them is not doing their job. It's one thing to excuse yourself from a case here and there because of a conflict of interest, but this is selective application of the law.
If Judge Doe doesn't believe in gay marriage, then he doesn't have to go to them on his Saturday afternoon, or buy Sue and Sally a toaster with his private money, but he does have an obligation as a public official to enforce public laws.
I see your point, but I really don't think your analogy applies here.
If I don't believe in a abortion, and I force those views on someone else, I am taking away a right (the right to make a choice about bodily autonomy).
If I believe gay marriage is wrong, and I express those views by practicing selective application of law, I am also taking away a right (the right - recently enshrined in law - for same-sex couples to marry).
Additionally, where I work, if I refuse to perform the tasks outlined in my job description because I don't agree with them morally, I assure you I would be shortly finding a new job. Why should a judge be exempt from workplace standards? Especially when it is specifically related to the application of law...
They are more than welcome to choose to leave their jobs if they find a part of it so against their beliefs that they cannot do it. They do not have to approve of gay marriage, they just have to do the job they get paid for.
Judges take an *oath* (which used to mean something) to uphold the law. Like someone said above, if you know your job is going to require you to violate your beliefs, *you get another job*.
When pro-choice women say that they "personally don't feel that abortion is OK, but we should never force our own personal morality on others",
they mean that they personally would not CHOOSE to get an abortion.
It has nothing to do with the abortion provider.
If you don't believe in gay marriage than don't get married to someone of the same sex.
"If you don't believe in gay marriage than don't get married to someone of the same sex."
You're right. This is the real analogy here between the right to abortion and the right to gay marriage.
The argument for gay marriage is that legally, people should have the right to CHOOSE which consenting adult they want to marry. Likewise, the pro-choice argument is that women should have the right to CHOOSE whether or not to have an abortion.
Nobody is forcing anybody to get married to a member of the same sex; however, plenty of people are interested in forcing women to give birth rather than have an abortion.
So then it's ok for them to be biased in court cases right?
Sorry, but upholding the law is their job. Do you think every judge likes every law? They don't have to like the law, but they do have to interpret and enforce the laws. Why do they only become big cry babies when it comes to gay marriage. Is this REALLY the most offensive legal change to happen in their careers? Please.
"...should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs."
Same sex couples should not be penalized either! I guess these statements only apply when beneficial to themselves.
But are they being "penalized"? They can still get married by somebody who doesn't have a problem performing the service. Just seems like a fairly obvious win-win for the couple to get married by somebody who is happy to perform the service.
It's a judges job to uphold and perform tasks spelled out under the law, period. S/he does not reserve the right to pick and choose how and when they apply these rules. Period.
That is the only argument necessary in this entire case, but I'll humor you and offer an unnecessary response to your question. Not all towns and counties have many judges so who is to say that there will be "someone else" who will marry same-sex partners? It's not only possible, but likely, that if exemptions were allowed, entire regions would be without judges willing to perform civil ceremonies. I also think that if you allow judges to opt out of performing civil ceremonies (thus opting out of performing their job, ya know they one they were hired/elected to do), it may create a sort of chilling effect for those judges who do not have a problem performing these ceremonies. There are plenty of communities in which it would be easier for a judge with no objection to same-sex marriage to opt-out rather than bring the wrath of bigots. In turn, the problem of finding a judge willing to perform this task would be worse.
Ideally, yes, it's best to get married by someone who doesn't think your union is an abomination. But that doesn't change the fact that a judge has a legal duty to perform.
But this isn't about the refusal to perform marriages altogether, which some judges have taken; that's a coward's way out, but at least an honest coward. It's about refusing to perform only certain marriages, not because they violate the law but because you do not like the idea of these two people being married.
If judges (not clergymen, judges) are given the right to determine who they will and will not marry on an individual basis, they could also prevent marriages between people of different races or religions if they disapproved of it, despite the fact that those are protected classes at the state and federal level.
And the "I can refuse and they can go somewhere else" argument fails in the same way that anti-birth control pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions fails, even if they offer referrals: it creates undue--and unequal--barriers to access to a basic human right.
I disagree that this is a win-win. It is never a win to have a judge refuse to uphold the law that gives any couple the right to marry. That is the very definition of lose.
To have the legal right to marry but still be denied equal access to this right based on the personal whims of judges can only be considered a loss.
Funny how their "religious beliefs" come into play now; same sex marriages go against their Christian beliefs, yet they didn't make any stink about people of other religions other than theirs getting married or athiests gettting married.
So if I happen to be a waitress or a grocery store cashier, I can refuse to serve or ring up anything with meat, considering I'm a vegetarian?
It IS "contrary to my deeply held beliefs." I mean, where do we draw the line?
sure, if you own the private business yourself.
Except that there is a big difference between the two situations. In this analogy, we're discussing a privately owned business run for profit. So yes, in theory, a private business can refuse to sell a product or provide service. These judges work for the government, however, which is far from private, and as such different rules apply.
It's also important to remember that judges are required to swear an oath. They don't get to pick and choose which parts of the oath they are going to take to heart, and which parts they feel like ignoring that day.
i agree with you 100% :)
If they don't want to perform marriages, then they shouldn't have to perform marriages.
What they cannot do, is agree to perform only some marriages, and not others, based on their own moral beliefs.
The government and its officials must be blind to race, creed, religious confession, sexuality, gender, or color. The service of marriage is not exempt from this.
If one judge won't do it, another will.
When your personal beliefs impede on the civil rights of others, your personal beliefs are exempt from protection. End of story. This is a fundamental principle of American democracy. That is why, one day, marriage will be available to all Americans.
But a judge shouldn't be able to opt out of performing civil marriages altogether either. If you are a judge, you were put into that position to perform certain duties. You don't get to opt out of those. Performing civil unions is part of their job. I'm a victim advocate. I am paid to do everything in my job description. That means I don't get the luxury of doing everything but one item, and still get to get paid. I don't get to serve all victims who come to my office, except the gay ones. I would be fired for that.
This is so dumb.
Next will we allow senators to ignore the democratic process so log as they have "deeply held beliefs" that we ought to be living in a monarchy?
There is an aspect to being a judge of interpreting laws and opposing laws that are wrong or unconstitutional, but somehow I have more respect for judges who oppose laws on the basis that those laws are hurting others than judges who oppose laws on the basis that they just don't like them personally....it's a distinction society often fails to make and it makes me sad. I hope people don't end up falling into the trap of "well, those judges thought gay marriage was good, and those other judges thought it was bad - so both their opinions are equally valid" as so often happens with issues like these...
I still like The Onion's take on conscience clauses -- a photo showing a man in a white coat in an apparent pharmacy setting, captioned, "Christian Scientist Refuses to Fill Any Prescriptions."
In that case, judges should be able to refuse to issue marriage licenses to couples who don't share his or her religion because REAL marriage is only in the eyes of their particular god. There are plenty of religions that do not recognize divorce so some judges may opt not to issue licenses for remarriages. And if you've had a kid out of wed-lock, forget about it.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge who agrees with every law they have to uphold. But their job is to follow the law, regardless of personal feelings. If I have a religious or moral objection to eating meat, I won't go get a job as a butcher. If judges refuse to uphold the law as written, they need to find another job.
But in a butchery working with meat is basically the entire job. There's many, many other aspects to being a judge than performing marriages, and in some cases marriages might be a very small component of a judge's time. So, isn't there some room there for specialization?
If you objected to eating meat and you opened a vegetarian restaurant, isn't it OK for you to tell a customer who comes in looking for meat 'we don't serve meat here, but there's a good restaurant down the road that does'?
The law gives people the right to marry, but a judge who refuses to perform the ceremony herself/himself isn't violating the law any more than the vegetarian restaurant owner is violating the steak-lovers right to eat steak (so long as the judge doesn't do anything to prevent willing colleagues from carrying out the marriage).
If marriages are a very small part of a judges job and he/she objects to performing same-sex weddings, then the judge should stop performing marriages altogether. Problem solved.
I should have said that the alternative was to stop performing marriages rather than finding another job. But if they choose to be involved with that aspect of the law, they do not get to pick and choose how they apply it.
The veg restaurant owner, as the sole proprietor, would have the right to decide what services (s)he does or doesn't offer. [Although, of course, (s)he still can't legally discriminate on certain bases -- say, to refuse to serve black people.]
In this case, on the other hand, the judges' duties are prescribed by the government, and as government employees, they need to carry those duties out. If the moral conflict becomes too severe, then perhaps they should look at a new job.
Exactly. The analogous party to the judge in the vegetarian restaurant example would be a server who, say, has a moral opposition to soy milk and refuses to take orders for or carry out any dishes containing it. The owner would be well within zir rights to fire that waiter because ze was hired to take the orders and carry out ALL the food, not just the dishes he likes.
ryanmc, every analogy you've used in this thread has been incredibly faulty. And yet you haven't responded to the revamped versions of your analogies that Nakedcat has offered which work much better for the situation at hand.
Sorry, I mistakenly thought you were also the poster above (redrider) who also used a fault analogy. So that is why I said "every analogy" and why I assumed you were only posting them without responding to the critism of them.
But I would still like to hear what you have to say in response to Nakedcat's analogy which I think makes much more sense in this situation.
OK, not sure if the thread's still being followed anymore, but anyway:
in Nakedcat's analogy it would also be within the restaurant owner's rights to move the server who objects to serving soy milk to other duties in the restaurant that do not require serving the offending product.
If the server has worked for the restaurant for many years and serving soy milk has never previously been a requirement of the job and has only recently been made so, that might be a perfectly reasonable way to handle the tension.
I, like most on here, am very happy about gay marriage no longer being prevented in Iowa, but the actions of these judges falls short of 'preventing' in my opinion. Comparisons to refusal to fill birth control or morning after pill prescriptions don't strike me as appropriate because the urgency isn't typically there with marriage. Nobody's health is compromised by having to 'shop around' a little for the right person to perform a marriage service.
Ryanmc, I'm actually still following the thread. Two points I'd like to raise:
First, you brought up the point that performing marriages for same-sex couples was not previously a requirement for the judges' jobs and that a potential solution would be to move the judge to a job where this does not take place. First, I will say that if individual offices can work out issues with performing SSMs this way, by informally redelegating duties to those who have no problem with performing the ceremony, more power to them. However, it is still in the job description of the objecting judges that they must perform marriages whether they approve of the match or not. If the pro-SSM officiant is out of the office that day, the anti-SSM officiant needs to suck it up, be a big boy/girl/otherwise, and do what's in their job description.
Second, while I agree that the analogy to obstructionist pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill or birth control is not exact because the one involves pressing health concerns whereas the other most likely does not (unless the rush to get married involves an urgent need to access health insurance or power-of-attorney and next-of-kin rights). However, it is still a barrier to access and potentially detrimental to the ability of same-sex couples--particularly poorer couples or those with mobility issues, for whom having to go to the next town over is a significant burden. It also underlines to people who have already been marginalized that their marriage is "fake" or "less equal" if an 18 year-old woman and a 40 year-old man can get married and no judge is allowed to object or refuse to carry out the ceremony, while same-sex couples are subject to the whims of whomever is on marryin' duty that day.
I work very closely with Judges and other people throughout the criminal justice system, and, no, there is no room for specialization. In a lot of towns, that would cause their courts to collapse if there was even one judge who refused to perform civil marriages.
This is ridiculous. If a judge objects to performing a civil marriage for religious reasons, they need a refresher course on the separation of church and state.
This is unbelievably ridiculous. A judge is a public servant who is being paid with tax dollars and by refusing to do a part of their job they are in violation of it. I am a high school history teacher therefore I am a public servant. Is it ok if I don’t teach students because their religions were different than mine? Is it ok if I don’t teach students who of a different race or ethnicity than mine? No, because that is discrimination. The whole debate about religion and homosexuality is erroneous and tied to hate and fear. Christian’s sure love to ignore the "love thy neighbor" part of the Bible in favor of the sections that allow discrimination based on gender, race and sexuality. The Bible was used to keep women from political, economic and social equality because a woman must be "subjugated to her husband" and are "not allowed to speak in Church". The Bible was used to promote slavery because a slave must "obey your human masters in all things" and "slaves belonging to Christian masters must not despise them". The Bible is a living manuscript that is adapted and changed. It is rules to guide one’s life. It is not a literal translation of the morals and codes that we have to live by. The main instruction given in the Bible is to love, respect and show compassion for your fellow man. That is what we all need to work towards and stop manipulating these words to fit our individual discriminations and injustices.
JessyH, I agree that the most important part of the Bible is the lesson to "love they neighbor." However, I'd just like to point out the reference that ALL Christians don't favor the parts about discrimination. I realize that this may be a slight overreaction, since I know that Christians do ignore the good parts of the Bible, but I just want to say that it's not fair to clump all Christians into one category and accuse them of doing something that some haven't done. For example- I'm Christian, Catholic to be exact (not the RCC- I also hate being clumped in with them, since I'm not), and I and my church believe in loving one another, accepting each other, and helping each other. Those were the lessons my Sunday school lessons focused on, and those are the values my church lives by. That's evidenced by the fact that I'm feminist and support gay rights. Like I said, many Christians do, unfortunately interpret the Bible in the discriminatory ways, but not everyone does.
I do agree that members of any group do not all feel the same way. I should have specified that I meant some or many but in no way meant ALL. It is an overgeneralization that I did not mean to make and apologize. Thank you for pointing out that error on my part.
I do agree that members of any group do not all feel the same way. I should have specified that I meant some or many but in no way meant ALL. It is an overgeneralization that I did not mean to make and apologize. Thank you for pointing out that error on my part.
I do agree that members of any group do not all feel the same way. I should have specified that I meant some or many but in no way meant ALL. It is an overgeneralization that I did not mean to make and apologize. Thank you for pointing out that error on my part.
I do agree that members of any group do not all feel the same way. I should have specified that I meant some or many but in no way meant ALL. It is an overgeneralization that I did not mean to make and apologize. Thank you for pointing out that error on my part.
I absolutely love how conservatives always use the default "constitution" argument in regard to federal oversight, yet many of them need a primer on it. Whatever happened to the first amendment: separation of church and state? Why is it suddenly chic to protest (tea parties) when we've been doing it all along and getting criticized for it? Jeez, at least stay consistent in your beliefs.
Religious beliefs have absolutely no bearing on CIVIL marriages. They are totally separate institutions. Remember, separation of church and state? Why do people always forget this.
I think that it WOULD be violating someone's religious freedom if, say, members of the clergy were compelled to perform religious marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples. However, since the issue in question is one concerning simply CIVIL marriages, religion should never even factor in.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, folks.
I love this. That may be my favorite Bible quotation ever.
Can Catholic judges start refusing to marry someone if he or she has a divorce?
This is ridiculous.
Can (radical) Mormon judges start marrying men when they already have a wife?
Could you imagine what would happen if a Muslim, or worse, an atheist judge didn't marry Christians?
This subject reminds me of this post here: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/04/the-burkhalogic-of-nom.html
This also would mean that judges could start refusing to preside over cases that they had a "moral objection" to. For example if a father kills his daughter for "shaming the family" but the judge thinks that's OK, and refuses to sit at the bench? Or a judge thinks it's OK with his religion to beat a wife, so he won't sentence a man to jail because of "religious reasons?"
We could avoid all this by separating civil marriage and religious marriage is the government would FINALLY get out of the marriage business!
i love this last comment. he is so right. The government needs to get out. Marknadsnyheter