Protecting the right to love
The U.S. Supreme Court has established same-sex marriage as the law of the land, but there remain pockets of resistance all over the country. Two current cases in Colorado and Kentucky show how difficult it still is for some Americans to accept that all of their countrymen deserve to marry whomever they love.
In both cases, the courts must continue to uphold the constitutional principle of equal rights for all people under the law.
So far, the Kentucky case has proven to be an easy one for the courts to handle.
After the Supreme Court’s June ruling on same-sex marriage, Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, directed her office to stop issuing all marriage licenses. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, has said that her religious beliefs prevent her from issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
It’s an interesting case because Davis isn’t the only county clerk in Kentucky to feel that her religious beliefs are directly in conflict with the responsibilities of her office. There’s at least one other county clerk in Kentucky who’s pledged not to issue the licenses.
Yet many others obeyed the law and began handing them out. Some who felt that same-sex marriage was too great a conflict for them resigned because they could not carry out their duties.
Resignation is the sensible course for those who wish to make same-sex marriage a matter of their personal convictions and can no longer perform their public duties. It’s also the course that Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, has urged for the clerks who remain defiant.
Gay and lesbian couples who were denied licenses have sued Davis, and a U.S. District judge in eastern Kentucky, David Bunning, has ruled against her.
Bunning noted that Davis had likely violated constitutional protections on the freedom to practice religion by “openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expenses of others.”
That’s a wise distinction to make, and one that we urge other judges to consider as they weigh these cases. Religious freedom can’t come at the expense of anyone else’s constitutionally protected rights.
But it’s not just a small selection of public officials who disagree with samesex marriage, it’s also some people who serve the public. In Colorado this week, the state court of appeals upheld previous decisions against a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple in 2012. The court’s decision specified that the baker’s actions were in violation of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.
Colorado law “prohibits places of public accommodations from basing their refusal to serve customers on their sexual orientation,” the court noted.
Here’s the catch, though — the court was only able to give this (proper, fair) ruling because Colorado has an anti-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation.
Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark decision, only 22 states (and the District of Columbia) specifically prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. The next fight for equality must be a federal extension of this protection.