It’s as ridiculous as it is sad when a government compels its citizens to act in a manner that contradicts their consciences. But forcing New Yorkers to accept with new boundaries of matrimony wasn’t enough for liberals who keep forgetting to be broad-minded. They had to be sloppy, too.
In addition to transforming matrimony on a whim, they forgot to care about honorable dissenters. As a result of Albany’s typically and totally well-thought-out bill allowing anyone to marry anyone else, state workers responsible for signing marriage certificates are allowed to maintain their jobs or religious convictions, but not both:
A town clerk in a rural upstate New York community has submitted her resignation, citing her religious opposition to gay marriage.
Who is this H8ful H0m0ph0b3 who thinks that marriage was fine before the progressive reinvention? What a surprise: she goes to church. How rotten can you get?
Laura Fotusky submitted a letter of resignation to the town board in Barker on Monday, saying her religious beliefs prevent her from signing a marriage certificate for a homosexual couple, as she’d be required to do as a municipal clerk.
Count another person out of work in New York State, although she is jobless for a novel reason involving personal integrity instead of a traditional one involving a pathetic economy. What does the man who hasn’t exercised his right to marry the Kwanzaa cake’s inventor think about Ms. Fotusky’s unemployment?
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said elected officials must abide by the rules of the state.
“The law is the law,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday. “When you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose.”
That’s true even when a state unilaterally redefines a word in the name of altering a custom that has worked for as long as there have been societies. One shouldn’t expect much from a government that counts reducing the rate of increase for already-ridiculous property taxes as an accomplishment.
Not quite astonishingly, the same politicians who have dedicated their careers to making life in New York exasperating forgot to consider the rights of people who have stronger convictions than, say, Mark Grisanti:
There was no protection provided in the legislation for Town Clerks who are unable to sign these marriage licenses due to personal religious convictions, even though our US Constitution supports freedom of religion.
The site that printed her letter also points out that photographers and caterers face lawsuits if they dare not cater double-groom ceremonies. Don’t forget who’s imposing views upon whom.
That’s not even to mention that couples in traditional marriages don’t have any recourse for how the term has been diluted. Politicians are more concerned with legislating permissiveness. It’s of course so homophobic to maintain that matrimony should be kept the way it always has been, as if gays were being denied the right to love based on their inability to be a wedding’s primary participants.
As for now, we’ll have to wait and see if a Muslim clerk refuses to grant a gay marriage license. The intolerant left won’t know which side to claim is the victim of injustice. It would bring some relief knowing that they would be spending their hours trying to reach the end of the Möbius strip of spurious affliction.
Anthony Bialy is a writer and “Red Eye” conservative in New York City. He tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.
Cross-posted at http://buffalobean.wordpress.com
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I couldn’t agree more with you on the religious implications of the recent change in law here in NY, and I admire Ms. Fotusky’s determination in “walking the walk”, so to speak when it comes to her beliefs. Unfortunately Governor Cuomo has chosen to worship at the altar of post-modernism, like most Democrats, and has chosen pandering to this season’s victimhood group instead of doing the right thing and constructing a civil union that would be a legally equivalent, completely secular, binding compact that wouldn’t attempt to co-opt the meaning of the religious one-and essentially force all of society in affirming and celebrating a practice they may be vehemently opposed to.
But sadly, as a government employee, that courageous woman of integrity put herself into a situation of having to, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesars”; or should I say Mr. Cuomo, aided and abetted by Mr. Skelos in the Albany assembly, which put her in that situation. Admirably, she instead chose to, “Render unto God, that which belongs to God”…
Now it will be a whole other story if, and when, gay activists try and force private businesses and organizations to cater to them, regardless of those entities moral values, in trying to take this forced affirmation to another level.
I’m already angry at Mr. Skelos for capitulating on this matter, him being my local assemblyman as well. In coresspondance he assured me that no religious or private concerns would be forced to cater to, partake in, or minister over these so-called marriages if it violated their core beliefs. I’m keeping an eye on this myself.
And finally I’d just like to put out there that my abhorrance to the militant homosexual activists success in passing this doesn’t extend to gay people personally. For me at least, it’s a, “love the sinner, hate the sin”, situation. I’ve known many folks of this persuasion over the years and thought them fundamentally fine people. But their unions are not the equivalent of traditional marriage socially or from a standpoint of cultural anthropology. Co-opting that term is a cheap avenue to the mainstreamin of an un-natural lifestyle.
I couldn’t agree more with you on the religious implications of the recent change in law here in NY, and I admire Ms. Fotusky’s determination in “walking the walk”, so to speak when it comes to her beliefs. Unfortunately Governor Cuomo has chosen to worship at the altar of post-modernism, like most Democrats, and has chosen pandering to this season’s victimhood group instead of doing the right thing and constructing a civil union that would be a legally equivalent, completely secular, binding compact that wouldn’t attempt to co-opt the meaning of the religious one-and essentially force all of society in affirming and celebrating a practice they may be vehemently opposed to.
But sadly, as a government employee, that courageous woman of integrity put herself into a situation of having to, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesars”; or should I say Mr. Cuomo, aided and abetted by Mr. Skelos in the Albany assembly, which put her in that situation. Admirably, she instead chose to, “Render unto God, that which belongs to God”…
Now it will be a whole other story if, and when, gay activists try and force private businesses and organizations to cater to them, regardless of those entities moral values, in trying to take this forced affirmation to another level.
I’m already angry at Mr. Skelos for capitulating on this matter, him being my local assemblyman as well. In coresspondance he assured me that no religious or private concerns would be forced to cater to, partake in, or minister over these so-called marriages if it violated their core beliefs. I’m keeping an eye on this myself.
And finally I’d just like to put out there that my abhorrance to the militant homosexual activists success in passing this doesn’t extend to gay people personally. For me at least, it’s a, “love the sinner, hate the sin”, situation. I’ve known many folks of this persuasion over the years and thought them fundamentally fine people. But their unions are not the equivalent of traditional marriage socially or from a standpoint of cultural anthropology. Co-opting that term is a cheap avenue to the mainstreamin of an un-natural lifestyle.
Would we be admiring this woman if she had, say, been a devout Roman Catholic who refused to sign wedding certificates for straight couples who were married in a public park, or other venues besides Roman Catholic churches?
This is absurd–come on, guys: clearly, in this case, what’s being discussed is civil marriage, rather than religious marriage. Only a church can sanctify a religious marriage. Only the state can sanctify civil marriage (which is why it should be called something else–for straight couples as well as gay ones).
This woman is entitled to be a conscientious objector to society-at-large, but to say that someone who refuses to do her civil duty should still have her job is ridiculous.
The big dramatic change in marriage occurred thousands of years ago, when monogamy took over from polygamy–that was a much bigger deal than this. That was a structural change; this one is pretty superficial, from a civil point of view.
I am as religious as the next girl, but my personal faith must merely cooperate with society at large; it needn’t dominate it.