Appropriate for a teenager

On the marriage front:

All three employees of the clerk's office in Decatur County, Tennessee have resigned. They refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Bye! At least they have the decency to resign when they won't fulfill all of the duties of their job. Other clerks elsewhere across the South have also resigned.



And some clerks need a push. The ACLU has filed suit against Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis who has refused to issue marriage licenses to all couples. Plaintiffs in the suit include both straight and same-sex couples.



Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been slow to allow same-sex marriage even though the Supremes and the 5th Circuit have ordered him to do so. He was waiting for the Federal District Court, the one that had said refusing same-sex marriage is permissible. The 5th Circuit had given that lower court until July 17th to rescind their earlier ruling, now that it conflicts with the Supremes. The District Court managed to do it in a day. Commenter Franck Rabeson characterized the conversation this way:

Jindal: “We won’t allow same-sex couples to marry in Louisiana until Supreme Court of the United States says othewise.”
SCOTUS, June 26, 2015: “Ahem.”
Jindal: “… all right. Well, there’s also the Fifth Circuit of Appeals that needs to…”
5th Circuit, July 1, 2015: “Ahem.”
Jindal: “Dammit. Well I’m waiting for the relevant district c–”
District court, July 2, 2015: “A-freaking-HEM, dude, get the hint already!”

No matter. At the time all but two parish clerks were ignoring Jindal and issuing licenses to same-sex couples. And now all of them are.



The Episcopal Church, at a convention this week, has approved by a wide margin two new liturgies on a trial basis. These liturgies will be used when marrying same-sex couples. One of them is a gender-neutral version of the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer.



Tobin Grant of the Religion News Service did some surveying of the opinions of members of various church denominations. He also looked at various denomination official positions. He then ranked all of them by acceptance of homosexuality. United Methodists are in the middle. Grant found that denominations towards the top and bottom of the lists were the ones most likely to issue a statement on same-sex marriage, those towards the top in favor, those towards the bottom stating their displeasure. Those in the middle, respecting the split opinions of their members tended to stay quiet.



Ari Ezra Waldman, a lawyer writing for Towleroad, takes a look at the dissents issued by Alito, Thomas, and Scalia in last week's case that brought marriage equality. He'll discuss the Roberts dissent in another post.

Scalia: Yeah, he was as rude as we expected him to be. Many of his talking points were from conservatives who think liberals talk down to them. Scalia sneers that Kennedy found a right that "lesser legal minds" – Scalia lists some of the great names of the Court – did not. Waldman reviews those legal minds and says,

True, none of these great jurists declared that the Constitution protects a gay person’s right to marry the person that he or she loves. But they never had the occasion to do so.

Alito's dissent appears to be built around protection of the majority. This ruling, Alito says, "facilitates the marginalization" of Christians. Oh, that old line. Waldman wrote:

Alito’s concern is misplaced. At worst, he is doing what he and Scalia do best: fear monger and predict gloom and doom. Such overreaction is more appropriate for a teenager, not a Supreme Court justice.

Thomas: The most quoted part of his dissent begins:

Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved.

According to Waldman, in just a few words Thomas (1) absolved those who held slaves, (2) reduced same-sex marriage to "governmental benefits, " and (3) denied that dignity is harmed by institutionalized discrimination. But the issue is whether the Constitution allows states to damage a person's dignity.

Greenland!

Marriage equality will come to Greenland on October 1st!

I mentioned a couple days ago that Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, won't let a vote on marriage equality happen on his watch, even though the country is very much (perhaps 70%) in favor of it. The Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has responded by submitting a bill to establish marriage equality. Whether that bill passes (if a vote is allowed) depends a lot on whether the various party leaders demand a party-line vote of their members or let members vote their conscience.

Here is a map of where we have marriage equality. In some countries the light green means there are civil unions, in other countries it means some locations have equality and other locations don't. It is easy to see there is no equality in Asia, Middle East, and Africa – with the exception of South Africa.

Angela Merkel of Germany said same-sex marriages "are not a goal of this government." It's not on the agenda. It appears that in Germany when parties form a governing coalition they work out an agenda to which all parties can agree. But if something new comes up that isn't on the agenda it is difficult to make it happen. I'll be kind – Germany was one of the first to enact civil unions.

And it Texas, which is reaching the end of its legislative season, their bill to defy the Supremes on marriage equality has died. A few wise voices said, hey guys, there are other things of higher priority. Another 20 some bills that would have made life rough for sexual minorities have also died.

Frank Bruni, in a New York Times opinion, has noted two things in common with what appears to be a diverse list of countries. Those countries are: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg and Ireland. Those common things are: (1) More people go to Roman Catholic Churches than any other religious denomination. (2) All of them have made same-sex marriage legal. Yes, over the Vatican's protests.

Even in America Catholics are defying their leadership. That means prez. candidates Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio, who have cited their Catholicism as a reason for opposing same-sex marriage, are in the minority of Catholics on this issue. But they take that stance for their Evangelical Protestant supporters.

Balances religious freedom and discrimination

Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, asked the state legislature for a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, similar to the one that caused such a ruckus in Indiana. A Louisiana House panel rejected it in a 10-2 vote. Jindal, who has formed an exploratory committee on becoming a GOP candidate for president, said, fine, he'll do it himself by executive order.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu issued an executive order of his own.

The city of New Orleans appropriately balances religious beliefs of all kinds with civil liberties, including freedom from discrimination. … The purpose of this Executive Order is to confirm for the residents of the City of New Orleans, its businesses and visitors that religious beliefs are protected from unjustified governmental burden, but that there is no tolerance in the City of New Orleans for discrimination on the basis of race, creed, national origin or ancestry, color, religion, gender or sex, sexual orientation, gender identification, marital or domestic partner status, age, physical condition or disability.

State Senator Karen Carter Peterson took to the senate floor to blast Jindal. Strange that he doesn't like executive orders when they come from Washington. Strange that his first commercial about the executive order ran in – Iowa.