Texas attorney general works around gay marriage decision

[StLucieBengal]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/06/29/texas-attorney-general-county-clerks-may-refuse-to-grant-same-sex-marriage-licenses-on-religious-grounds/

Remember when I said that all this will do is force states to get creative to do what they want.... Well case in point.

Quote: "Friday, the United States Supreme Court again ignored the text and spirit of the Constitution to manufacture a right that simply does not exist," Paxton said in a statement. "In so doing, the Court weakened itself and weakened the rule of law, but did nothing to weaken our resolve to protect religious liberty and return to democratic self-government in the face of judicial activists attempting to tell us how to live."

[StLucieBengal]

Quote: "County clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may allow accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case.

"Justices of the peace and judges similarly retain religious freedoms, and may claim that the government cannot force them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections, when other authorized individuals have no objection, because it is not the least restrictive means of the government ensuring the ceremonies occur. The strength of any such claim depends on the particular facts of each case."

[BmorePat87]

[BmorePat87]

His argument is ridiculous, though. justices of the peace and judges are acting agents of the government. By refusing the law of the land over their own religious convictions, they are violating the 1st Amendment. It is part of their job to issue these marriage licenses, a job they chose.

[*Nately120*]

If you don't want to issue gay marriage licenses I suggest you find a different job...it's really quite simple. And holy crap, why did I start reading the comments section?

[WhoDeyWho]

(06-29-2015, 07:04 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote:

Pretty much

[Benton]

Not a big surprise. It will continue to be tested at the state level and overturned at the federal level. Eventually Texas will have to get up to date.

[*Nately120*]

(06-29-2015, 10:45 AM)Benton Wrote: Not a big surprise. It will continue to be tested at the state level and overturned at the federal level. Eventually Texas will have to get up to date.

Nuts to that, I'm sure there are people even in Texas that are willing to take a government job even if it requires following federal law (GASP!).  I can't believe any Republican would ever disagree with the notion of replacing an employee who refuses to do an aspect of his job with one who will.

Oh wait, white Christian people are involved...my bad.  Continue refusing to do your job and acting like martyrs.

[*michaelsean*]

It's been decided. Time to move on folks. Especially since any creative avoidance will end up right in front of the people who just decided the case. This isn't like abortion. Nobody is actually being injured here, and some people are going to be helped with actual important things. Gay marriage still doesn't make sense in my mind, but if it helps somebody take care of an ailing partner or gives them rights of inheritance and whatever other rights come with being married, that's a good thing.

[CKwi88]

Why am I not surprised it's Texas?

[GMDino]

(06-29-2015, 11:26 AM)michaelsean Wrote: It's been decided.  Time to move on folks.  Especially since any creative avoidance will end up right in front of the people who just decided the case.  This isn't like abortion.  Nobody is actually being injured here, and some people are going to be helped with actual important things.  Gay marriage still doesn't make sense in my mind, but if it helps somebody take care of an ailing partner or gives them rights of inheritance and whatever other rights come with being married, that's a good thing.

[fredtoast]

I guess a lot of people who have been divorced are going to be denied marriage licenses in Texas also.

And interracial couples.

Thank you Texas. Nothing could provide a better example of the way Christians think about "religious freedom" in America.

[StLucieBengal]

(06-29-2015, 12:30 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I guess a lot of people who have been divorced are going to be denied marriage licenses in Texas also.

And interracial couples.

Thank you Texas.  Nothing could provide a better example of the way Christians think about "religious freedom" in America.

In what way is a religious objection possible in an interracial marriage? Please list who doesn't allow interracial marriages.

Speaking as a catholic I know you just need to file an annulment to be married in the church... after a divorce. It certainly wouldn't affect your ability to get one at the JP.

[BmorePat87]

(06-29-2015, 02:12 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: In what way is a religious objection possible in an interracial marriage?  Please list who doesn't allow interracial marriages.  

Speaking as a catholic I know you just need to file an annulment to be married in the church...  after a divorce.   It certainly wouldn't affect your ability to get one at the JP.

Who you to say that my religion can't denounce interracial marriage?

[*Nately120*]

(06-29-2015, 02:12 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: In what way is a religious objection possible in an interracial marriage?  Please list who doesn't allow interracial marriages.  

Speaking as a catholic I know you just need to file an annulment to be married in the church...  after a divorce.   It certainly wouldn't affect your ability to get one at the JP.

The fact that you don't think religious values/freedom was used as an excuse to oppose interracial marriage makes me hopeful the StLucieBengal's of the next generation won't know religious values/freedom was used as an excuse to oppose gay marriage.

[BmorePat87]

Quote:Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Judge Leon Bazile, the trial judge who initially upheld the laws that prevented interracial marriage before the Supreme Court ruled against them in Loving.

[fredtoast]

(06-29-2015, 02:12 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: In what way is a religious objection possible in an interracial marriage?  Please list who doesn't allow interracial marriages.  

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

— Judge Leon M. Bazile, January 6, 1959



For Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo, racism was more that just an ideology, it was a sincerely held religious belief. In a book entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, Bilbo wrote that “[p]urity of race is a gift of God . . . . And God, in his infinite wisdom, has so ordained it that when man destroys his racial purity, it can never be redeemed.” Allowing “the blood of the races [to] mix,” according to Bilbo, was a direct attack on the “Divine plan of God.” There “is every reason to believe that miscengenation and amalgamation are sins of man in direct defiance to the will of God.”



 As early as 1867, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld segregated railway cars on the grounds that “[t]he natural law which forbids [racial intermarriage] and that social amalgamation which leads to a corruption of races, is as clearly divine as that which imparted to [the races] different natures.” This same rationale was later adopted by state supreme courts in Alabama, Indiana and Virginia to justify bans on interracial marriage, and by justices in Kentucky to support residential segregation and segregated colleges.



Bob Jones University excluded African Americans completely until the early 1970s, when it began permitting black students to attend so long as they were married. In 1975, it amended this policy to permit unmarried African American students, but it continued to prohibit interracial dating, interracial marriage, or even being “affiliated with any group or organization which holds as one of its goals or advocates interracial marriage.” As a result, the Internal Revenue Service revoked Bob Jones’ tax-exempt status.  This decision, that the IRS would no longer give tax subsidies to racist schools even if they claimed that their racism was rooted in religious beliefs, quickly became a rallying point for the Christian Right. Indeed, according to Paul Weyrich, the seminal conservative activist who coined the term “moral majority,” the IRS’ move against schools like Bob Jones was the single most important issue driving the birth of modern day religious conservatism. 



Tell the Church I Love my Wife: Race, Marriage and Law – An American History by Peter Wallenstein. Christianity and religions come up in several places in the book. Sometimes it refers to ways Christians oppose interracial marriage. For example, President Truman articulated that he believed that interracial marriage was inconsistent with the Bible.  Wallenstein also pointed out how religion was used to challenge interracial marriage such as in the 1960s when various religious figures enunciated an opposition to bans of interracial marriage.





Educate yourelf, Lucy.

[jmccracky]

White nazi dudes use the bible all of the time to dignify their hate.

[Bengalholic]

Quote:"Friday, the United States Supreme Court again ignored the text and spirit of the Constitution to manufacture a right that simply does not exist," Paxton said in a statement. "In so doing, the Court weakened itself and weakened the rule of law, but did nothing to weaken our resolve to protect religious liberty and return to democratic self-government in the face of judicial activists attempting to tell us how to live."

IMO, there's quite a bit of irony in that last sentence.  

Isn't that the exact thing that the anti-SSM groups were attempting to do?

[*Nately120*]

(06-29-2015, 02:43 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: IMO, there's quite a bit of irony in that last sentence.  

Isn't that the exact thing that the anti-SSM groups were attempting to do?

Meh, these are people who are convinced they have to wake up every day and make a conscious decision to find women attractive...I can see why they're a little antsy.