The Raleigh News & Observer published an op-ed yesterday about an interracial couple who wanted to get married but were turned away by North Carolina magistrates. Apparently, it was against the magistrates (two of them) religions to marry an interracial couple. One of the magistrates even read Bible verses to the couple which he believed backed up his views.
From newsobserver.com:
I met the love of my life more than 40 years ago in Raleigh. Thomas is a lifelong North Carolinian. I was a recent transplant from Vermont. We are both legally blind, and soon after we met, we moved to Winston-Salem to work for the Industries of the Blind. Our friendship blossomed into love, and in 1976, Thomas proposed. I very happily said yes.
But when we walked into that government office together, we were told that the magistrate on duty wouldn’t give us a marriage license. I was flabbergasted. We had planned everything, we had all our paperwork and we were legally eligible to get married.
So why wouldn’t he marry us? The reason, it turned out, was because Thomas is African-American, and I am white. The magistrate told us that marrying an interracial couple went against his religious beliefs. Our happy day quickly turned into a nightmare.
Whether gay or straight, black or white, Jew or Gentile, nobody has a right to tell anyone who they can love or marry. House representatives must finally stop Senate Bill 2 and sustain the governor’s veto so that no other couple in North Carolina ever has to go through what we did when they want to marry the person they love.
There is much more in the op-ed, and is worth a read.
The couple were eventually able to get married, and have been happily married for almost forty years (my congrats to this wonderful couple). And, it was eventually ruled that the magistrates had acted unlawfully.
The North Carolina legislature has a bill before it that would make it legal (according to state law) for magistrates in the state to refuse to grant marriage licenses to couples or marry them if it would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. It had already passed both houses of the legislature, but was vetoed by the governor. The state Senate has already overridden the governor's veto, and now the bill is before the state House.
Lambda Legal's senior counsel, Ken Upton, has a warning for state officials that might refuse to allow same-sex couples their constitutional marriage rights should the SCOTUS rule in our favor. The advice was given in the context of Texas state and local officials who seem to want a fight over this, but the advice works for North Carolina state and local officials as well.
From the Observer:
“I think there will be some places where this is a problem, but it isn’t going to be a problem for very long,” Upton said. “I think a clerk that hides behind Vital Statistics, when the law clearly states you have to let them get married, risks personal liability.”
Upton said it would also be illegal for clerks to stop issuing licenses to all couples, because they’d be interfering with the fundamental right to marry under the U.S. Constitution. If clerks or state officials refused to comply with a federal judge’s order, they could face punitive damages into the millions of dollars, he said.
“If the Supreme Court rules in our favor, I think there will be relatively little resistance in most places,” Upton said. “Where there are people resisting and throwing up obstacles, I think it will be a fireworks show worth watching, because the truth is they are going to get their heads handed to them.”
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Towleroad
Wed Jun 03, 2015 at 9:18 PM PT: Rachel Maddow had a segment on this story tonight as commented on by txdoubledd. The bill is scheduled to come before the House again tomorrow. As Rachel would say ... "watch this space."