“If there’s any possible way to not do it legally, then yes, I would not want to put my name on any of those certificates or papers,” MacEwen she told Politico. “That’s their life, they can do it, but I don’t feel I should be forced into something that’s against my morals and my God.”MacEwen, a 75-year-old Republican, said she doesn't believe that same-sex couples will apply for a marriage license in Volney anyway. She further claims that there are no gay couples in her town that she's aware of.
“I don’t know of anybody like that in my town,” she said. “I’m sure that there might be, but I haven’t heard about anybody.”MacEwen is up for reelection to her fifth four-year term in November.
Earlier this month, Left of the Hudson warned that some municipal clerks in New York might refuse to sign marriage certificates, and that proposed wording in the Marriage Equality Act could help shield clerks from prosecution. And even without such language in the bill, the legality of discriminatory practices is still murky.
Recently, conservative pundit and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, called on municipal clerks in Iowa (where gay marriage is recognized) to risk losing their jobs by standing with their religious objections. As as a blog called "Manic Squirrel" points out, Huckabee's objections fly in the face of The Bible:
[Huckabee] clearly ignores a foundational teaching by the apostle Paul in Romans 13: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”The ultraconservative Heritage Foundation is also pushing for "conscience rights," which they call the "new front line in the culture war." This is a definite sign that Conservatives know that the legislative battles over gay marriage is all but lost. The new conservative tactic is to play the victim by claiming that gay rights are limiting the rights of those that object to them.
MacEwen is not the first municipal clerk to refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. In California, gay marriage was challenged by a county clerk who objected to such unions. The clerk, Chuck Storey, even asked to become the primary defendant in the lawsuit to uphold Proposition 8, a ballot resolution which banned gay marriage in the state.
In fact, the Campaign for Children and their Families, a wholesale anti-gay lobbying group in California, has equated the issuing of gay marriage licenses to mindless compliance during the Holocaust.
Ask your county clerk if they were a Nazi officer during WWII and had been ordered to gas the Jews, would they?Note: Campaign for Children and their Families has taken down the blog post with this statement from their website, Save California.
23 comments:
I think we should get a busload of couples together next month and make a road trip to Volney to get our marriage certificates signed.
How is this different from people in the 50s and 60s refusing to marry blacks to whites?
Fire her.
legal analysis here: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2011/06/same-sex-marriage-in-new-york-religious-exemptions-do-not-extend-to-public-employees.html
If you want to call her to voice your opinion, she can be reached at.
Barbara A Macewen
1619 County Route 57
Fulton, NY 13069-4513
(315) 592-7374
Vote her out, and then sue her ass.
Article 78 provides a remedy where a judge can order her to follow the law and discharge her duty. It's done in the Supreme Court in the county where the clerk's jurisdiction lies.
If she doesn't want to do her job, then she should resign. Simple as that. Ms. Macewen, it's time for you to retire.
Shes from a time where that wasn't acceptable. Its her rite to believe what she wants. Just like how gay couples and everyone else in the world is allowed to believe what they want. She should def retire and let someone else fill her job but she's not an asshole for thinking the way she does.
She's not an asshole for thinking the way she does, you're correct. But she's a public official, and as such, she has a duty to abide by the laws of the state. If she refuses to perform the duties in her job description, she shouldn't be in that job. She can go on believing whatever she wants, but if her job entails signing marriage certificates, she cannot pick and choose whose she will sign. Just like if she was a member of a church who opposes, say, interracial marriage and she refused to sign any marriage certificates for interracial couples.
She should be fired if she won't do her job.
Terminate her immediately for failing to uphold her oath of office.
Stupid fundie.
She does know where the pink triangle representing gay rights comes from, right? Hitler gassed homosexuals right alongside Jews in WWII. It's absurd to say that respecting gay rights is similar to gassing Jews; in fact, I'd hope that someone sensitive to the Holocaust could respect how offensive that analogy is.
It is insanely offensive that this sick bigot uses the hideous, inhumane tragedy of the Holocaust to justify her disgusting hate-mongering.
How many of us would keep our jobs if we refused to do them for such a spectacularly assinine reason?
Fire her.
"She's not an asshole for thinking the way she does,"
Of course she is. This is America - she's free to be as backward, hateful, and wrong as she wants. She's not free from being called exactly what her bigotry makes her.
The Holocaust comment wasn't from MacEwen, the article says it's from Campaign for Children and their Families. So you can't get mad at her for that particular bit.
She can't pick and choose which marriages are valid to her no matter what her personal or religious beliefs are - she has state job which requires her to sign all marriage certificates. She should be fired ASAP.
I'm really interested to know if she stopped divorcees from getting married... if her denial of gay marriage is based on the Bible, then she should've had problems a long time ago.
She should quit, and if she refuses to quit, she should be fired.
She is not being asked to marry another woman herself. She is being asked to issue marriage documents to other people.
Does she refuse to issue documents to other couples whose private lifestyles don't jive with her own beliefs?
if she was elected, IMPEACH HER! if she was hired, fire her for incompetence, or failure to perform since she cannot perform her required duties. She has every right to practice her religion... just not at the expense of someone else. IF she want's to follow her religious beliefs, let her quit and find a job that meets all the specific biblical beliefs somewhere else.
cheers
georgia
Ignorance can be fixed. ...stupid is forever.
can anyone say discrimination... perhaps even a "hate" crime. ...next she'll be stopping interracial marriages... divorces... perhaps she won't give out a business license that allows a business to run 7 days a week, since her beliefs probably state you can't work on the sabbath... what next Barbara?
That sounds like wow , Really @HotMessSundae ?
How many of us would keep our jobs if we refused to do them for such a spectacularly assinine reason?
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