Utah Senate passes bill allowing officials to refuse to marry same-sex couples

[KamaAina]

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2015/03/utah-senate-passes-bill-allowing-officials-to-refuse-to-marry-same-sex-couples/

The Utah state Senate has approved a proposal to allow government employees to refuse to marry same-sex couples if they opt out of their right to marry anyone.

The Senate cast a 24-5 vote along party lines to pass the bill (SB 297) Monday night. Democrats opposed the bill, which now moves to the House.

Layton Republican Sen. Stuart Adams sponsors the bill, which would also require counties to have a designated person on hand to marry any couple, even if the county clerk opts out.

It also says religious organizations would not have to recognize marriages that go against their beliefs.

[msongs]

1. the HRC backstabbers will be along soon to endorse this bill as a great compromise nt

[RKP5637]

2. Some just gotta be backward and sponsor hatred. I've never really understood these gripes about

gay marriage. It's always a total WTF to me. Like are they that totally fragile in life that if gay marriage happens it's going to shell-shock their fragile and timid lives, I guess so. How pathetic to be that way, so filled with hatred and ignorance. So led by the nose in beliefs programmed into their heads and lacking their ability to think.

[RKP5637]

3. Religion, the great separator of mankind fostering hatred and irrational beliefs. n/t

[frazzled]

4. First they came for women's health ...

and nobody really cared. Is it surprising that a movement for such a "conscience clause" has come to infect the marriage business too?

Conscience clauses have been proliferating for the past few decades. That we didn't stop them then is leading to today's problems. (And yes, this is why Patricia Arquette was right in her comments: we all have to support each other, or none of us is safe.)

An overview of the history of "conscience clauses" from the Human Rights Magazine of the ABA here:

Conscience clauses moved beyond the military in the 1970s, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Shortly after Roe, a number of states and the federal government enacted medical conscience clauses, providing abortion-related exemptions for health care workers. Congress enacted the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7, which provides that health care entities receiving certain federal funds may “refuse to provide abortion or sterilization if such services are contrary to their religious or moral beliefs.” In addition, forty-seven states and the District of Columbia passed laws allowing medical professionals to refuse to provide abortion services. Since then, conscience clause legislation has continued to proliferate.

Closely related to abortion conscience clauses are pharmacist “right of refusal” laws, which allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for so-called abortifacient drugs, including birth control, if filling the prescriptions would conflict with their religious beliefs. Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington have all enacted conscience clause laws, while other states have adopted a patchwork of different approaches. Some states have actually imposed an affirmative duty on pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception, but federal courts in Washington, Stormans Inc. v. Selecky, 844 F. Supp. 2d 1172 (W.D. Wash. 2012), and Illinois, Menges v. Blagojevich, 451 F. Supp. 2d 992 (C.D. Ill. 2006), have found that such mandates violate both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

http://www.americanbar.org/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/2013_vol_39/january_2013_no_2_religious_freedom/the_spread_of_conscience_clause_legislation.html

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. The State, LLC continues to lose legitimacy