Remember Barbara MacEwen, the town clerk in Volney, New York, who said she believed marriage between two men or two women is morally wrong? The one who said she didn’t want her name on any marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples? The one who didn’t think any gay people lived in her town for her to worry about anyway? Yeah, that Barbara MacEwen.
She became something of a martyr on the anti-gay right, with NOM calling her a “casualty of [same-sex marriage].” Because issuing a license for a same-sex couple to wed is going to send her straight to hell, I guess. And some saw MacEwen’s vow not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as a sign of a whole lot of bullshit to come from similarly minded bigoted town and city clerks.
Well, not if Kathleen Rice, District Attorney in Nassau County, has anything to do with it. Rice made clear to all town and city clerks within her jurisdiction that there will be absolutely none of that nonsense on her watch. And that she is prepared to use the full force of her office to make sure same-sex couples have the same level of access to marriage licenses that everybody else enjoys. Because the Marriage Equality Act does not in any way, shape, or form permit clerks to allow their “conscience” (to use the word loosely) to get in the way of doing their jobs and serving all citizens of the state of New York equally.
In a letter to Nassau County clerks:
The Marriage Equality Act provides that an application for a marriage license cannot be denied on the grounds that the applicant parties are of the same sex and the law affords no discretion to public officials charged with granting marriage licenses. Therefore, any such refusal may be subject to criminal prosecution.
The religious exemptions in the Marriage Equality Act are inapplicable to town and city clerks serving in their license-granting roles, and a public official’s intentional refusal to issue marriage licenses to qualified same-sex couples may constitute Official Misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor defined in section 195.00 of the New York State Penal Law.
[…]I am confident that public officials in Nassau County will comply with
the law and my office is prepared to offer any assistance necessary to ensure that same-sex couples have access to marriage licenses without issue.
In other words: Just try it and see what happens.
The bigots will undoubtedly cry about the “persecution” they’re suffering under Kathleen Rice’s authoritarian DA office and those damn militant gay activists. And nobody will care. Keep weeping, bigots. Marriage equality has come to New York and there’s not a thing you can do about it.
See a PDF of the letter here.