Are You a Public Servant? Then Serve the Public
If you're a public servant, you don't get to choose which parts of your job you will do and which you won't. If an action falls within your job responsibilities and scope of duties, you have to do it unless you've been granted an accommodation due to a disability. That's how I've always understood things.
But apparently, some North Carolina magistrates and clerks in county register of deeds offices find it unconscionable that they be asked to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples now that Amendment One, the 2012 voter-approved law prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, has been struck down. (A federal judge ruled it unconstitutional in the fall, after which same-sex couples began marrying throughout the state, and some magistrates and clerks resigned in protest.)
Rather than do the "honorable" thing and resign from their positions because the thought of marrying the same-sex couples in front of them apparently appalls them, some magistrates and clerks contend that their First Amendment rights are being infringed upon now that equal marriage has become the law in North Carolina. Ridiculous, right?
Not to our legislators. Just this week, the North Carolina Senate passed a bill, by a vote of 32-16, that would allow magistrates and clerks to opt out of performing same-sex marriage ceremonies if they feel that doing so would conflict with their religious freedom. It now goes to the state House. Although the bill would prevent these magistrates and clerks from performing any marriage ceremonies, even for heterosexual couples, let's not buy into the notion that the proposed law is in any way neutral. It's clearly targeted at LGB North Carolinians and is meant to be one more barrier to realizing our constitutional rights.
http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/02/27/op-ed-are-you-public-servant-then-serve-public
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