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Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays[W:297]

I believe this is a temporary thing in that they will fold as soon as they are contested. Symbolic bullcrap about to get their parade rained on big time. Most likely trying to martyr themselves for a political future in their districts.

I doubt it's symbolic, after all, the courts have already decided that creationism is never allowed in public schools, that doesn't stop the idiot religious from trying it time and time again, even though they know that once it hits the courts, they will lose. They don't care and since it's just taxpayer money they're wasting, it doesn't cost them anything personally to keep trying.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

I was a machinist. I should have questioned my boss as to where each part I machined was destined to be used. I spent six or so years machining parts for blowout preventers used in deep water. I wonder how long I would have kept my job if I had told my company that because of my deeply held religious environmental beliefs, I would not be able to help produce these parts so he would have to find something else for me to machine. :lamo

Im an electronic engineer and ive worked, telecom, commercial electronics, weapons and now military . . . i wonder how many things i have made that have been part of killings? spying? the making of porn? and gay weddings . . oh man

its a complete joke and everybody honest knows it. . . its an attempt to deny others rights and control others
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

This is the way it is now. People come in and go to the next open window. This is as it should be. But you are forgetting that some people may not want to serve the people in front of them. If they don't they should be replaced by people who will serve everyone.
Everyone is welcome to their opinion on the matter, my point is that the law doesn't require it.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Why do you say that? I have never claimed to be for, against, or indifferent to gay marriage.

They haven't yet come to terms with damage they have done with the means to this end.
 
Havent read the whole thread yet but:

Meh, so what? There will be lots of clerks, etc that will issue the licenses. And eventually, all the hysteria will blow over and everyone will just do their jobs. And the ones that refused will look like the people that resisted segregation and supported Jim Crowe. And that's how history will remember them.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Good to see that Texas is standing up to a SCOTUS gone rogue.

Recognizing equal rights for benefits and privileges accorded by the govt is 'SCOTUS gone rogue?' Damn!
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

I knew this would come. I am not surprised it comes from Texas. Telling employees they need not give a license leaves the AG and the state libel in every way. I think this protest is foolish as it won't come to anything except lawsuits and lawyers in Texas all buying new Mercedes. SCOTUS will not like this.

Then in the future, clerks may not be hired if they have religious objections to doing so. If they cant do the job, they shouldnt be hired, just like Muslim workers at Target, for ex, that dont want to handle pork. If you cannot do the job, you should not be hired.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Okay fair enough. So where do you stand on it?

Those against it now often say, 'it's not about SSM, it's about SCOTUS overstepping their bounds and deciding for everyone."
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

This is what I find interesting. the SCOTUS struck down the defense of marriage act because they said that the federal government did not have the power to define marriage.
so what the SCOTUS did was break their own previous ruling by ruling by defining marriage at the federal level.

I think it needs to be reargued under that argument.

Did they define marriage? Or did they just make sure that govt conferred benefits and privileges were no longer being distributed in a discriminatory manner?
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

When was marriage ever defined in the first place? Is it between a man and his slave? Is it between a man and harem of women? Is it between a man and his sister? Is it between a man and his daughter?

Unfortunately, I think DOMA defined it as one man, one woman.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

that judge can do what he wants. the constitution says that the government cannot force them or discriminate against their religious views.
the state has to make reasonable accommodations. the SCOTUS has ruled on this time and time again.

that is that guy and his choice. you can't force others to do it based on the constitution.

Cool but any new clerks? Not getting hired if they wont do the job because their religion 'prohibits them from doing so.' They shouldnt even apply.

Heck, who says their managers cant reassign them to just handing out dog licenses or something else?

Even in TX there will be clerks that will be happy to do it.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

It's total BS all wrapped up in homophobia and hate.

When's the last time you read of a clerk refusing to give a marriage license to a fornicator or a divorcee? Or an adulterer? Not even Catholic clerks.

And yeah, esp in smaller towns, they'd know.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

I've already said numerous times that anything that causes an undue burden would likely not pass muster.

Anything can be considered an "undue burden" depending on the other person's point of view. How many minutes would be necessary to constitute an "undue burden"?
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

here's the problem. when it becomes clear that they WILL negatively impact your religious rights I'm sure your opinion will stay exactly the same as it is. When all the private schools are forced to shut down because they lose tax exemption for not embracing gay marriage, then we'll see what BS you come up with to rationalize it and say it had NOTHING to do with this supreme court ruling. Or when christian churches get sued out of existence for not performing gay marriage.

Oh I'll bet you will be on FIRE then, huh? admit you were totally wrong, right?......................yeah, I seriously doubt it.

All the private schools? There are a good many private schools that are secular.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

All the private schools? There are a good many private schools that are secular.

Well things are going to get interesting, no matter which side of the fence you're on. And in WA St. sexual orientation is a protected class.

"Catholic school fires asst principle when it finds out he's married."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...-back-catholic-school-fired-article-1.1715326

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/j...nst-catholic-school-that-fired-teacher-for-m/


IMO the Catholic private school should have the right to fire him. I dont "like" that but I still think they should have that right. However this will be a decision between a religious beliefs and anti-discrimination.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Recognizing equal rights for benefits and privileges accorded by the govt is 'SCOTUS gone rogue?' Damn!

Equal protection did not play any significant role in Justice Kennedy's opinion in Obergefell. He wrote some gobbledygook about it which, as Chief Justice Roberts noted in his dissent, "is, quite frankly, difficult to follow." Roberts continued: "The majority goes on to assert in conclusory fashion that the Equal Protection Clause provides an alternative basis for its holding. Yet the majority fails to provide even a single sentence explaining how the Equal Protection Clause supplies independent weight for its position, nor does it attempt to justify its gratuitous violation of the canon against unnecessarily resolving constitutional questions."

Obergell, like Roe v. Wade, is entirely a substantive due process decision. The Chief Justice also recalled that the Court first used the doctrine of substantive due process in the notorious decision that made the Civil War inevitable, Dred Scott v. Sandford:

"The need for restraint in administering the strong medicine of substantive due process is a lesson this Court has learned the hard way. The Court first applied substantive due process to strike down a statute in Dred Scott v. Sandford. There the Court invalidated the Missouri Compromise on the ground that legislation restricting the institution of slavery violated the implied rights of slaveholders. The Court relied on its own conception of liberty and property in doing so. It asserted that 'an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States . . . could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.' In a dissent that has outlasted the majority opinion, Justice Curtis explained that when the 'fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws [are] abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control' the Constitution’s meaning, 'we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.'" (emphasis added)


For reasons that Justice Thomas explained in great detail in his dissent, the notion that the Due Process Clause of either the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment guarantees privileges that would not exist but for government has no support whatever in the history of the concept of due process, when it is analyzed from its roots in Magna Charta to modern times:


Even if the doctrine of substantive due process were somehow defensible—it is not—petitioners still would not have a claim. To invoke the protection of the Due Process Clause at all—whether under a theory of 'substantive' or 'procedural' due process—a party must first identify a deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property. The majority claims these state laws deprive petitioners of 'liberty,' but the concept of 'liberty' it conjures up bears no resemblance to any plausible meaning of that word as it is used in the Due Process Clauses . . .
..................
In enacting the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Framers similarly chose to employ the 'life, liberty, or property' formulation, though they otherwise deviated substantially from the States’ use of Magna Carta’s language in the Clause. When read in light of the history of that formulation, it is hard to see how the 'liberty' protected by the Clause could be interpreted to include anything broader than freedom from physical restraint . . .

If the Fifth Amendment uses 'liberty' in this narrow sense, then the Fourteenth Amendment likely does as well. Indeed, this Court has previously commented, 'The conclusion is . . . irresistible, that when the same phrase was employed in the Fourteenth Amendment [as was used in the Fifth Amendment], it was used in the same sense and with no greater extent.' And this Court’s earliest Fourteenth Amendment decisions appear to interpret the Clause as using 'liberty' to mean freedom from physical restraint . . . That the Court appears to have lost its way in more recent years does not justify deviating from the original meaning of the Clauses.
.................
Even assuming that the 'liberty' in those Clauses encompasses something more than freedom from physical restraint, it would not include the types of rights claimed by the majority. In the American legal tradition, liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Anything can be considered an "undue burden" depending on the other person's point of view. How many minutes would be necessary to constitute an "undue burden"?
We don't look at the other person's point of view. "Undue burden" is a legal term which has been interpreted as a substantial obstable, or a significant difficulty or expense. Having to wait a few extra seconds does not create an undue burden. Having to wait another week, or drive an extra 80 miles to another county would. Exactly how many minutes must one wait before it becomes an undue burden is a gray area, so naturally you would want to minimize the wait (if any).
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Being a clerk has a job description in this case it is issuing marriage licenses it would be difficult to change this. Better that the people change jobs, get suspended, or be terminated.
Having read more background on this case, it appears that in Texas, a clerk is elected by the county. The elected official delegates powers to deputy clerks and other staff to carry out the assigned responsibilities.

According to the Texas Code, deputy clerks are *allowed* to perform any of the official duties assigned to the clerk, though they are not *required* to perform any duty. Therefore, at least for deputy clerks and other staff, it is very easy to change a person's job description - it's written into the same code that granted the power to issue licenses in the first place.

Again, we're left with the idea that so long as the duties are being performed in a manner that does not create an undue burden on anyone (and treats people with dignity), who cares how they've decided to handle any underlying staffing issues.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Equal protection did not play any significant role in Justice Kennedy's opinion in Obergefell. He wrote some gobbledygook about it which, as Chief Justice Roberts noted in his dissent, "is, quite frankly, difficult to follow." Roberts continued: "The majority goes on to assert in conclusory fashion that the Equal Protection Clause provides an alternative basis for its holding. Yet the majority fails to provide even a single sentence explaining how the Equal Protection Clause supplies independent weight for its position, nor does it attempt to justify its gratuitous violation of the canon against unnecessarily resolving constitutional questions."

Obergell, like Roe v. Wade, is entirely a substantive due process decision. The Chief Justice also recalled that the Court first used the doctrine of substantive due process in the notorious decision that made the Civil War inevitable, Dred Scott v. Sandford:

"The need for restraint in administering the strong medicine of substantive due process is a lesson this Court has learned the hard way. The Court first applied substantive due process to strike down a statute in Dred Scott v. Sandford. There the Court invalidated the Missouri Compromise on the ground that legislation restricting the institution of slavery violated the implied rights of slaveholders. The Court relied on its own conception of liberty and property in doing so. It asserted that 'an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States . . . could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law.' In a dissent that has outlasted the majority opinion, Justice Curtis explained that when the 'fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws [are] abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control' the Constitution’s meaning, 'we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean.'" (emphasis added)


For reasons that Justice Thomas explained in great detail in his dissent, the notion that the Due Process Clause of either the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment guarantees privileges that would not exist but for government has no support whatever in the history of the concept of due process, when it is analyzed from its roots in Magna Charta to modern times:


Even if the doctrine of substantive due process were somehow defensible—it is not—petitioners still would not have a claim. To invoke the protection of the Due Process Clause at all—whether under a theory of 'substantive' or 'procedural' due process—a party must first identify a deprivation of 'life, liberty, or property. The majority claims these state laws deprive petitioners of 'liberty,' but the concept of 'liberty' it conjures up bears no resemblance to any plausible meaning of that word as it is used in the Due Process Clauses . . .
..................
In enacting the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Framers similarly chose to employ the 'life, liberty, or property' formulation, though they otherwise deviated substantially from the States’ use of Magna Carta’s language in the Clause. When read in light of the history of that formulation, it is hard to see how the 'liberty' protected by the Clause could be interpreted to include anything broader than freedom from physical restraint . . .

If the Fifth Amendment uses 'liberty' in this narrow sense, then the Fourteenth Amendment likely does as well. Indeed, this Court has previously commented, 'The conclusion is . . . irresistible, that when the same phrase was employed in the Fourteenth Amendment [as was used in the Fifth Amendment], it was used in the same sense and with no greater extent.' And this Court’s earliest Fourteenth Amendment decisions appear to interpret the Clause as using 'liberty' to mean freedom from physical restraint . . . That the Court appears to have lost its way in more recent years does not justify deviating from the original meaning of the Clauses.
.................
Even assuming that the 'liberty' in those Clauses encompasses something more than freedom from physical restraint, it would not include the types of rights claimed by the majority. In the American legal tradition, liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement.

LOL

Not reading that wall of text. I saw the words written in their decisions. Did you?
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Having read more background on this case, it appears that in Texas, a clerk is elected by the county. The elected official delegates powers to deputy clerks and other staff to carry out the assigned responsibilities.

According to the Texas Code, deputy clerks are *allowed* to perform any of the official duties assigned to the clerk, though they are not *required* to perform any duty. Therefore, at least for deputy clerks and other staff, it is very easy to change a person's job description - it's written into the same code that granted the power to issue licenses in the first place.

Again, we're left with the idea that so long as the duties are being performed in a manner that does not create an undue burden on anyone (and treats people with dignity), who cares how they've decided to handle any underlying staffing issues.

Or they can rewrite job descriptions and ask, can you complete these tasks as specified if you take this job? They dont have to ask why, the person just has to say that they can or cannot do the job as described.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

Recognizing equal rights for benefits and privileges accorded by the govt is 'SCOTUS gone rogue?' Damn!

The federal government has no such authority. We should stop letting them pretend that they do.
 
Re: Texas AG Says Workers Can Refuse Marriage Licenses to Gays

The federal government has no such authority. We should stop letting them pretend that they do.

To confer benefits and privileges on marriage? OK. I personally dont think they should but they didnt ask me when they decided that marriage is a civil right...as posted in several people's responses here already.
 
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