LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

Link. (Obviously, the article's a bit old. But I hadn't heard about it before.)

Couldn't decide if this went in the "California Gay Marriage" thread or by itself.

Me? It's not discriminatory. Same applies to all.

Yeah, it's a political publicity stunt. Yeah, I have a problem with government officials contacting political lobbying groups to coordinate the government's actions with the lobbying group. (Just as I would if the government were contacting the ACLU and asking them if they'd pay for his legal bills if he uses the government's power in a way that he knows if going to get him sued.)

OTOH, IMO, the correct response to this is to let the voters punish him, or not, as they see fit.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

Power To The People

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

Straight ones.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

Seems to me her duties of office is to perform all of them, not just to pick and choose based on her beliefs.
The answer is simple. If her principals won't allow her to perform these ceremonies, she should resign and go about her life with happiness. Obviously she didn't expect this when she took the job, and now that things have changed, she should either accept the change, or move on.
But no, as usual, it's much easier arbitrarily change everything to make everyone else bow to her sensibilities, rather than do her job as described.

~Barf

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

She's still issuing licenses just not at ceremonies anymore, whoopdee doo.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

Not so much.

They used to put these to referenda. But they kept getting their ass handed to them.

(No pun intended.)

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

The whoopdee doo is that part of her job is doing the ceremonies. For her to decide that her public office won't based on her own principals is as un-American as it gets.

She's a public servant. That means she performs her job to the will of the public, not the other way around. And if she can't, then she needs to step down.

~Bang

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

I've always found it humorous that a certain posters name that ends in HOG is opposed to gay marriage.:D

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

Is performing weddings an essential pert of the clerk's job?

I could understand objecting if it were a case of, say, the Chief of Police deciding that he didn't like prosecuting people who beat up gays, so he's just going to not respond to any assault complaints, county wide, for everybody. IMO, enforcing the assault laws is an essential part of the police's job.

But is it essential for the county to perform weddings? Or is that a function that can be fulfilled perfectly acceptably by other means, like private businesses?

(Possible counter-argument: Does the County Clerk have the authority to write her own job description? Or does she have a boss who decides that?)

Or is it the voter's job to decide if this clerk is adequately performing the duties of her office?

Edit:

BTW, I may not have made this clear.

IMO, she's using her office for the purpose of creating a publicity stunt. She's intentionally choosing not to fulfill a job that she was elected to perform, for the purpose of promoting a (bigoted) political agenda.

IMO, what she'd doing is comparable to a hypothetical case in which a county, in response to a court ruling that says the county can't keep blacks out of the county swimming pool, decides to close the pool rather than comply.

But, IMO, the clerk's boss is the voters, and it's up to them to decide if this action is acceptable to them.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

Nobody cares what the "will of the public" is. That's why they're cramming this through the courts instead of through ballot initiatives. In every instance, so far, when "the public" has been allowed to vote, gay marriage has failed.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

well, essential or not, it is part of her described duties, is it not? As a public servant, it is up to the public to decide what her office does. If the public agrees with her, fine by me, but it is not her place, or the place of any public servant to make these decisions on their own.

I don't begrudge her beliefs, she's entitled to them as anyone is. But if it gets in the way of her public servant's job, she needs to remove herself. She's incompatible for the position.

~Bang

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-sex
 

I've got five large friends who'd like to discuss your post with you. :)

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

well, then we may as well just start allowing sheriffs to decide what laws they'll enforce.

Regardless of how the rulings came to be, there they are. And it's the duty of a public servant to follow them, or step aside. If she wants to protest and fight it as a private citizen, more power to her. But I don't feel it's her place to decide what the office will and won't do. The oath most public servants take contains language to "execute the duties of said office to the best of their ability".
Not to change what those duties are when she can't conscientiously execute them.

~Bang

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

I agree with you, Bang. I guess I'm just sick of a "democracy" where time and again, the minority rules.

Re: LA Times: Kern County clerk will stop performing weddings just days before same-
 

And well they should, because this country is based on the principal of equal treatment for all, not equal treatment except if the majority doesn't want to.