How hard do you think issuing a marriage license, keeping track of them and other county paperwork, being county clerk might be?
I have no idea what all is actually involved in being the town/county clerk.
I don't imagine that it's a position where you could easily fire the current clerk today and replace him or her with someone fresh off the street tomorrow.
I expect that while much of the actual "work" is
pro forma (eg. pull form, fill form, stamp form, file) the institutional knowledge of how to do the job is fairly extensive and requires more than a little OJT as well as the development of relationships both within the town or county "capitol" building as well as across the various departments of government.
If we're talking about a town where there's only
the clerk then I expect a government would be setting itself up for an absolute nightmare by just up and firing that person.
In a larger municipality where there's the clerk and one or more subordinate(s) it would probably be a lot easier to do but still not without its share of friction.
In either case, it's also possible that there are contracts and union representation (AFSCME) involved in the mix as well as an informal "good ol' boy" network of Christian employees who all disagree with this law on religious grounds and don't like the idea of one of their own having his or her faith compromised in this manner.
If you decide you want to fire the clerk it's possible that you'll have every other unionized and/or Christian employee in the government employ striking or slowing down or otherwise throwing wrenches in to the works.
As I also mentioned we may be talking about people who are politically connected or who may have knowledge of...indiscretions (to choose a tactful term) that have been committed by various public servants. Such relationships and knowledge could be brought to bear in order to pressure superiors.
It's also possible that we're talking about little old ladies in tennis shoes who have been serving the municipality for multiple decades and enjoy a very warm place in the hearts of local people both within and outside of government.
And all of this may be taking place in municipality where 99% of the population is deeply fundamentalist Christian, disagrees with this ruling, feels that the SCOTUS is legislating from the bench, and has had enough with what they see as a decline in good old fashioned values.
Look, I support SSM and this recent SCOTUS ruling as much as anyone.
It is not my intention to support what (if any - and I doubt there'll be much) "rebellion" might come as a result on the municipal level.
But, again, we're not talking about firing a McDonald's fry chef because he or she refused to clean a bathroom.
These are skilled professional positions and potential volatile situations.
There's a lot more to consider than just firing someone.