Indiana Clerk Who Refused Same-Sex Marriage license loses lawsuit
Dave Stafford for www.theindianalawyer.com
A southern Indiana deputy clerk who was fired after she refused to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple lost her civil-rights lawsuit against the county clerk. Her suit claimed religious discrimination on the basis of her avowed Christian belief that same-sex marriage is “against God’s law,†which is “above legal law.â€
Harrison County deputy clerk Linda G. Summers refused to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple that came to the courthouse in Corydon on Dec. 8, 2014. Two months earlier, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to take the appeal of Baskin v. Bogan, 766 F.3d 648, 672 (7th Cir. 2014), in which the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage. Â
Shortly after the ruling, and based on instructions to county clerks from the office of Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Harrison County’s elected clerk, Sally Whitis, sent an email to employees that said issuing licenses to same-sex couples was a duty of employment.
The email read in part, “Even though it may be against your personal beliefs, we are required by state law to process (same-sex marriage) applications. We are only doing the paperwork and not performing their ceremony. I expect everyone to please comply.â€
Despite the ruling and instruction to staff, Summers told Whitis that she could not process the license for a same-sex couple that came to the office weeks later. When she refused, Whitis took the form from Summers and processed it herself, according to the record. Afterward, Whitis told Summers such a refusal couldn’t happen again, because it was her job.
The next day, Summers gave Whitis a letter that requested a religious exemption from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, after which Whitis fired her for insubordination. Summers then filed a religious discrimination suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Judge Richard Young of the U.S. Court for the Southern District of Indiana, who authored the Baskin opinion, on Thursday granted summary judgment in favor of Whitis and the Harrison County defendants.
“In the end, Summers should have put her personal feelings aside and heeded the command of her employer. She was certainly free to disagree with the Seventh Circuit’s decision, but that did not excuse her from complying with it. When Summers refused to process a marriage application for a same-sex couple, Defendants were within their rights to terminate her employment as a deputy clerk for insubordination,†Young wrote.
He wrote the court didn’t doubt the sincerity of Summers’ religious belief that people of the same sex should not be allowed to marry. “However, that belief, no matter how sincerely espoused, does not objectively conflict with the purely administrative duty to process marriage licenses. Summers’ desire to avoid handling forms related to activities of which she personally disapproves is not protected by federal law. Title VII is not a license for employees to perform only those duties that meet their private approval. Therefore, the court holds Summers has failed to establish that her religious practices were in conflict with her duties as a deputy clerk. This is fatal to her claim under Title VII.â€
Young wrote that even if Summers established a religious conflict, it is with the 7th Circuit and not her employer, which was expressly forbid by the court from enforcing Indiana’s same-sex marriage ban. He relied on the holding of Miller v. Davis, 123 F. Supp. 3d 924 (E.D. Ky. 2015), a highly publicized case in which Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis was enjoined from her policy of not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex coupled based on her religious beliefs. In that case, the federal court ruled issuing a marriage license “merely signifies that the couple has met the legal requirements to marry. It is not a sign of moral or religious approval. The State is not requiring Davis to express a particular religious belief, nor is it forcing her to surrender her free exercise rights in order to perform her duties.â€
Although I do not support anything other than traditional marriage, I feel this ruling is correct. For one “God’s law over man’s law” would set a disturbing precedence. Whose god sets the precedence? I am like Peter in that we don’t obey the state over God, but as long as we are not asked to perform or service ceremonies which violate our convictions, then it is render unto Cesar. If I hand made the defense it would have been that the requirement caused me to violate my personal and demonstrable religious convictions.
However, being as the landscape of the Clerk’s duties changed under her feet, Some clerks should be grandfathered in and others should be allowed to sign off on the license. But again, signing off on a license is no more condoning it than registering a deed to a house they jointly own.
Personally, I feel that the state needs to get out of the marriage business entirely. Never the less, we have not seen the last and total impact of the court’s ruling that legalized gay marriage. Now that we have made love the compelling interest of the state is issuing licenses, we will see many more challenges. A line has still been drawn, and those out side the line will seek inclusion.
Ceasar’s tribunal opining the definition of marriage isn’t an end-all, for there are those that might wish to legally wed one’s goat or kitty because they have a loving relationship with that animal. It will be the court’s self-inflicted position to sanctify that “marriage” by repeating their own words.
But, less comically, when a parent and their biologic child or biologic siblings decide they want to wed, the court nor government will be unable to disallow it because of their acceptance of the perversion of nature as “natural”. Love isn’t a biologic state and we have accepted being “in love” as a weighted legal basis instead of an emotional condition.
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