A judge in Pennsylvania will decide if it’s ok for an elected official, in this case the Montgomery County Register of Wills, to essentially make up the law as he goes, The Intelligencer reports. To be fair, the Intelligencer doesn’t put it that way but that’s what’s going on here so I helped them out a bit.
A court hearing set for Wednesday will lead to a ruling on whether Montgomery County can continue issuing same-sex marriage licenses in spite of Pennsylvania’s gay marriage ban.
The Corbett administration has slammed Montgomery County Register of Wills D. Bruce Hanes as a local official flouting a state law, and the Pennsylvania Department of Health is seeking a writ of mandamus that would order him to stop.
The legal challenge is limited to whether Hanes is violating his duties by issuing the licenses. It won’t determine the legitimacy of the licenses Hanes has already distributed to 161 couples, including four who received theirs on Friday.
Hanes declared he would welcome same-sex couples seeking to be married on July 23. He said he wanted to come down on the “right side of history,” and made his decision after two key developments: the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and state Attorney General Kathleen Kane refusing to defend Pennsylvania against a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s gay marriage ban.
Like Kane, Hanes believes the law defining marriage between a man and a woman violates the state’s constitution, and therefore refuses to enforce it.
The crazy part is that Kane’s whole job as attorney general is to uphold the law but she ditched that, instead opting for popularity with the “evolving” left.
These guys can do what their conscience tells them to do, it doesn’t mean they have to still hold those jobs. It’s rather a funny thing. The same people who defend Hanes and Kane for following their consciences are the first to demand that a Christian photographer must take pictures at a gay wedding, even if it’s against their conscience. They say that if you want to run a business you can’t follow your conscience because your business is public. Even the Obama administration states this in their defense of the HHS Mandate. But when it comes to a job where the people are actually elected as public officials, the law becomes a matter of private conscience. Does this make sense to anyone? I mean, even to them?
No, of course not. The end justifies the means.
September 4, 2013 at 12:14 am
Pat,
If you were the Register of Wills, and PA enacted a law that said no redheads can get marriage licenses, would you quit your job or would you grant marriage licenses to redheads in defiance of the law?
September 4, 2013 at 1:45 am
A government that fails to uphold its own laws is as useless as a Church that doesn't live by its own teachings. Maybe I'm overlapping with your John boehner is useless thread, but I think a government of laws negates its usefulness, its importance, its value and its legitimacy when it willingly fails to uphold its laws.
In response to your commenter, Pat, above…that is fine for a person, but the government must abide by its laws. When it thinks the laws no longer erve the greater good it must work to change those laws. But willfully ignoring the laws of the land by the entity in power to implement and enforce those same laws. That undermines its own authority.
It's as if the Pope said that Jesus didnt really mean all those things he said, lets just do whatever we feel like…and Jesus probably would be ok with it.
Same with Syria. If a government requires we have a congressional vote to goto war. That what we do. If government yes no wiretapping without warrants. Ten they need warrants. If not, they serve jail time.
Civil authorities should not engage in civil disobedience.
September 4, 2013 at 2:31 am
So, Proteios, by "civil authorities should not engage in civil disobediance" you mean that you would keep your job and toe the line and deny a civil marriage licenses to a redhead. Got it. And when the next law denies civil marriage licenses to Roman Catholics you would keep your job and toe the line and deny a civil marriage licenses to Roman Catholics. Got it. Thanks.
September 4, 2013 at 12:44 pm
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September 4, 2013 at 12:45 pm
Pat, do you think your strawman there can talk back to you? Which other relationships do you substitute effigies for actual people in? Do you advocate gay marriage in the hope that one day you'll be able to make an honest woman of your RealDoll?
Two redheads of opposite sexes can have sex. Therefore they can marry. Two members of the same sex cannot have sex. Therefore they cannot marry. Masturbation into one of the two ends of the digestive tract is not sex—did you know that the anus and the mouth are not sex-organs?
Interestingly, confusion as to the status of the anus is a traditional byword for stupidity. "He doesn't know his ass from" (various objects)—in your case, a vagina.
September 4, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Sophie, you're off topic. (And reducing the sacredness of marriage to genital intercourse is insulting to all married people. Is that all your marriage is to you? F***ing? Figures.
The Topic that the blogger posted on is when civil authorities defy the law.
September 4, 2013 at 4:45 pm
Sophie, you're off topic. (And reducing the sacredness of marriage to genital intercourse is insulting to all married people. Is that all your marriage is to you? F***ing? Figures.
The Topic that the blogger posted on is when civil authorities defy the law.
September 4, 2013 at 5:24 pm
Typical reductio ad absurdam arguement. Typical relativist arguement.
For Pat, the ends justify the means.
September 4, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Soph: Moreover, there's no Straw Man here. Personally, I never use phrases like that – I prefer to say what I mean rather than rely on wordplay.
A Straw Man (yeah, I looked it up), would exist here if I had distorted Proteios' position and then successfully attacked the distortion, giving the false impression that I have successfully attacked his original position.
Here, however, his original position is that civil authorities should not engage in civil disobediance – and that's the position I challenged. I even quoted him and the quote wasn't taken out of context, because that's exactly the core issue here – should a civil authority (Bruce Hanes) ever engage in civil disobedience (granting a license in bold defiance of State law).
I'm kind of miffed at myself for not seeing through you sooner. But now my antennae are up.
September 4, 2013 at 5:38 pm
newguy40:
As to reductio ad absurdam, see my response to Soph. Same applies.
Throwing around inapplicable latin phrases doesn't advance the discussion. So, soup du jour to you!
September 5, 2013 at 12:10 am
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September 5, 2013 at 12:20 am
"Necessary but not sufficient", Pat. Marriage is about sex. It is the peculiar shape that "breeding pair" takes in humans—which are animals. That is not all they are but it is what they are. If your favored course of action has to omit that concept, it is automatically incorrect.
And your use of the strawman was where you blithely, not to say blitheringly, pretend that denying marriages to redheads who can have actual sex is the same thing as refusing to make it legally binding on the community at large when a same-sex two-member circle-jerk wants to play "house".
Also, your first use of it was in your reply to the blog-post itself, not to Proteios. You can't even understand your own comments, can you?
September 5, 2013 at 3:58 am
Sophie if you think marriage is about sex then (A) i feel badly for your spouse and (B) you're in the wrong country.
And my red head analogy is not a straw man argument. Please read up on straw man arguments and what they are and what they are not.
This is getting boring.
And did you really just say "circle-jerk"? Are there no standards on this site? Children have access to this blog.
Potty mouth.
September 5, 2013 at 4:00 am
Sophie if you think marriage is about sex then (A) i feel badly for your spouse and (B) you're in the wrong country.
And my red head analogy is not a straw man argument. Please read up on straw man arguments and what they are and what they are not.
This is getting boring.
And did you really just say "circle-jerk"? Are there no standards on this site? Children have access to this blog.
Potty mouth.