According to Reuters, the mayor of Sodom, er, San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, is "outraged" that San Diego might actually allow clerks loyal to truth to opt out of issuing marriage licenses to people who don't qualify for them.
Newsom apparently believes clerks should be forced to sanctify homosexual unions, whether it violates their conscience or not.
On Wednesday, San Diego County Clerk Gregory Smith said he would consider allowing clerks to bow out of processing such marriages if they had moral or religions objections.
"I was pretty shocked about all that, candidly, and pretty outraged," Newsom told Reuters in an interview.
When I hear this, the word "brazen" comes to mind, and so does the word "hubris." "Shameless," too.
The mayor, who said he will wed his actress girlfriend in a ceremony in Montana this summer, suggested that clerks who refused to marry gays in California should lose their jobs.
"If that is their job and they are going to be able to pick and choose based on their morality, then all of a sudden they are not doing their jobs," said Newsom, a Democrat thinking about running for governor to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"If you don't want to provide a marriage certificate and you've got a job that does that, then you should think twice about why you got the job in the first place and maybe you should get a new job," he continued. "Talk about a slippery slope, Mr. County Clerk down in San Diego."
These clerks didn't get a job to condone homosexuality. These clerks didn't get a job to endorse homosexual relationships. These clerks didn't get a job to reinvent society's most foundational institution. These clerks didn't get a job to call two homosexuals having sex "marriage." Those clerks didn't get a job to sanctify (if such a thing were really possible) an unnatural sexual relationship.
These clerks probably never imagined that legitimizing immorality and undermining marriage would be in their job description.
God will not be mocked, folks, and he told us clearly what's right and what's wrong, and made plain his plan for human sexuality. If Californians don't reverse this travesty, our country is cruising for a bruising.
13 comments:
Sanctify marriage? They're not church officials. They are being asked to do PRECISELY the job they were hired to do - ISSUE LICENSES. That's their job.
Whether or not 2 particular people should be allowed to marry each other is NOT up to the clerks - it's up to the laws (and legal system of the state).
It's not fair that the job requirements change after a person has done the job for years and now the emplowee is expected to adapt to entirely new expectations. I mean, how would Mayor Newsom like it if, after being San Francisco's Mayor for several years he was suddenly expected to begin enforcing the law! I don't think he would be able to adapt very easily.
Dear God, what a numbchuck the author of this article is. Clerks have the job of clerking no matter what the law says. It isn't up to them to decide who can and cannot get a license. YOU should be thankful for that. But then, maybe the next clerk you go before to renew your license to publish should decide on his/her own that you don't deserve the right to speak publicly. Hummm... then you'd be up in arms, right?
Silly notion, I know, but maybe... just maybe... if your religious beliefs conflict with your ability to perform the job you are paid to do by our secular government... perhaps you should find a job that doesn't conflict with your religious beliefs. Crazy notion in a country founded by people trying to escape from religious persecution, eh?
Dr. Martin: if the law says a man and a 5-year old boy can get "married," do you support forcing the clerks to license that?
You mean this country founded by religious people trying to escape religious persecution, Kelly M? The ones that believed in the same Bible that says homosexuality is wrong and violates God's design for human sexuality?
And if you're really interested in separating our government from religious beliefs, I suppose you won't mind if the government confiscates your property, searches your property without justification, or even deprives you of life. After all, these so-called protections are all based on religious beliefs...just like homosexuality and what defines "marriage."
Bob: Your question about "a man and a 5-year old boy" isn't pertinent. The problem with that sort of situation is that one of the parties involved is unable to give informed consent to participation in the marital contract and is, furthermore, an underage minor.
A same sex couple, on the other hand, is comprised of two individuals who are both legally entitled to enter contracts and capable of providing informed consent.
The ONLY "issue" with the same sex couple is that your religious beliefs say that they are icky. Well, I'm sorry, but this nation was not structured to allow you to persecute others based on your religious beliefs. In fact, we're engaged in a couple of wars right now fighting people who do that same sort of thing.
Jen, look up "sanctify." It means to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use (which marriage is, being instituted by God); to free from sin (homosexuality is a sin); to impart or impute sacredness, inviolability or respect to; to give moral or social sanction to.
Calling an immoral and unnatural act "marriage" attempts to do all these things, mainly to legitimize what can never be legitimate.
Kelly, my hypothetical about the man and the 5-year old boy IS pertinent. We could "decide" that the 5-year old is able to give consent, just as some have apparently "decided" two men or two women can do what has never been done in human history and actually can never do, regardless of how we may mislabel it: "marry."
No one is being "persecuted" based on any religious beliefs. Homosexuals enjoy the same rights and legal protections as everyone else, including heterosexuals. Homosexuals have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex that heterosexuals enjoy.
Sorry Bob, but you might want to brush up on your knowledge of law, science and history.
Same-sex couplings have been documented in the wild in over 200 species, so they are hardly "unnatural."
Quite a few of our founding fathers were agnostic or downright atheist, not Christian.
The State's interest in issuing "marriage" certificates has absolutely nothing to do with your religion.
History is chock full of examples of same sex couples and cultures that openly acknowledged them, so it quite certainly has been done before.
If you're going to argue the issue, please try to use real facts.
Sorry, Kelly, you might want to brush up on your science yourself. Like anything in the universe, anomalies exist, and while there have been anomalous same-sex couplings in nature, they are CONTRARY to the natural order. If they were the natural order, then every species would have died out a long time ago, since the heterosexual couplings would have been so infrequent that the species could not have been perpetuated.
Homosexuality has also been practiced since ancient times (I never said it wasn't; please go back and read what I said again). It has also been tolerated in some societies. But no society has ever had the hubris or total loss of all reason to call a homosexual coupling a "marriage."
You'll want to brush up on that history, too. There were a handful of agnostics among the Founders (maybe an atheist, though I can't think of any). But the overwhelming majority were Christian; not only cultural Christians, but the icky born-again types who actually took the Bible seriously.
It's true that the state interest in protecting marriage has little directly to do with religious justification (though it is there, since we are a nation founded by Christians on Christian principles, and 82% of Americans still identify with Christianity).
But the state does have very compelling practical interest in preserving marriage; I addressed that last week here: http://www.dakotavoice.com/2008/05/society-and-state-have-compelling.html
You might want to try the advice you proffered to me: try doing some research and follow where the facts lead, instead of emoting.
The interesting thing about the Founders is that they recognized that critical importance of not establishing a State religion. Even the Christians amongst them realized that a nation of free and equal individuals must protect its citizens from religious tyranny and recognize that those individuals who differ in creed should not be bent to the will of a religious majority.
It's a pity that that wisdom has been lost by so many, who somehow manage to twist the Lord's word into a charter to subjugate nonbelievers and impose the will of the Church (an establishment He was never too keen on during his time here) on all people.
Oh, and before I sign off, your bit about "natural order" still just boils down to "I don't like it because my book tells me so." Your argument about species going extinct creates a false dichotomy in which ONLY same or opposite sex coupling occur, which ignores the reality that a preponderance of opposite-sex couplings can coexist with a minority of same-sex couplings without any harm to the species' long-term survival.
Fortunately, time is on our side, and just like the people who swore that interracial marriages were a perversion and that certain races were only fit for slaves, you and those like you will fade into historical obscurity is an embarrassing footnote.
Kelly, you are correct when you state that the Founders recognized the importance of not establishing a state religion. Your apparent assumption that they meant to sanitize our law, government and public square from Christian values is incorrect.
The Founders overwhelmingly realized the importance of morality, religion and Christianity to a healthy society and good government. Consider these statements by the Founders:
Samuel Adams said, “Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, united their endeavours to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity…in short of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.”
Noah Webster said, “In my view, the Christian Religion is the most import and and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed…no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian Religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”
George Washington said in his Farewell Address “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”
John Adams said “Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.”
He also said "[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, said "...the only foundation for...a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."
Charles Carroll, another signer of the Declaration of Independence, said, "Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
Patrick Henry, the first governor of Virginia and one of the most ardent advocates of independence, said, "The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible."
Another of the Founders, Noah Webster, a lawyer and Yale graduate who is famous for his dictionary, said, "The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all of our civil constitutions and laws.… All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
Daniel Webster, one of the early statesmen of the nation, said “To preserve the government we must also preserve morals. Morality rests on religion; if you destroy the foundation, the superstructure must fall. When the public mind becomes vitiated and corrupt, laws are a nullity and constitutions are waste paper.”
No one is forced to believe certain religious beliefs, and no one is forced to worship at or support a particular religious institution.
My comment about the natural order actually goes even beyond what the Creator of the universe says. You can see the natural order in NATURE itself; I referred to that when I stated that heterosexuality is the NORMAL and natural sexual function, even among animals. Sex is first and foremost about reproduction, after all (no matter how good it feels). Regardless of any "harm" or "toleration" of homosexual behavior in animals or humans, it remains the natural order and remains necessary for the perpetuation of the species.
Finally, there was never a Biblical basis for the prohibition of interracial marriages, though some people did try to pervert Scripture to support such a prohibition (maybe like homosexual apologists are trying to pervert Scripture now to pretend God doesn't really disapprove of it?). There is, however, an overwhelming basis in the Bible for the contention that homosexuality is immoral, from Genesis to Leviticus to Romans to Corinthians, to name a few. It's as plain as day.
But, as many people are proving these days, human beings have remarkable ability to make themselves willingly blind to what would otherwise be obvious.
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