Tennessee GOP quietly overturns marriage equality by giving officials the right to refuse
Public officials in Tennessee can now refuse to grant a marriage license to anyone at their own discretion, for any reason.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 878 on Wednesday, which took effect immediately. The bill — just a few sentences in length — only states that "a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage." Only state notary publics, government officials, and religious figures can "solemnize" a marriage in Tennessee, according to state code.
None of the sponsors behind the bill have been made public statements on its introduction or passage, nor have they given comment to media organizations. The only known remarks regarding the law from state Rep. Monty Fritts (take a guess), who sponsored it in the House, are from February of last year, when he spoke to the state Subcommittee on Children and Family Affairs.
The most terrifying aspect is that it isn't just gay marriage at stake here - Interracial marriages, atheist marriages, inter-abled marriages.. ALL marriages are at risk if a person you've never met won't sign a piece of paper.
Find one who refuses to marry Republicans, or whites, or straight couples and watch the bitching fly.
Be funnier if alot went along with it.
Moonies do have a religious argument against solemnizing same race marriages. They won’t, and they’re a cult, but they are the only religion to my knowledge to prioritize interracial marriage
Hey I remember you, any luck on that feeding Taylor Swift Taco Bell to turn your wife bisexual thing?
Not yet, not for lack of trying.
Saying that, she's flying out for a "girls weekend" and her friend is hot and slutty, and there will be wine.
I can hope
Keep reaching for TayTay's vajayjay, my friend.
Very well. Despite having no power to perform a wedding and certainly not in a state I have only been to one time in my life I am officially declaring that I will not marry a straight couple. It umm goes against my religion. The first church of anidiotsayswhat.
Your love Tennessee, your move
I'm trans, that's been the case for me.... my entire gender identity at one point hinged on me making empty legal threats I had no way to back up to gaslight people at the DMV to sign off on something that I already had enough legal documentation to get signed off on.
There was a time when I was federally Female and in my state Male.
Thank God the bitch behind the register who kept using "It" and "They" to refer to me didn't call my bluff about "Coming back with my Lawyer"... soon as I said that, she clammed up, used the correct pronouns and gave me an F on the gender marker.
Fucking hells they called you "it"?! I am really sorry you had to experience that. Where I am she would be lucky to keep her job.
This was back in 2012/2011 the world's changed a lot since then, today, the paperwork would likely be enough unless I was in an insanely red county
That's what's sort of mind boggling about all of this. Society has already decided to support LGBT rights. Republicans are just reopening a war that's already been lost.
That's what's terrifying, they don't see the writing on the wall, they can't see it, their job depends on ignoring it completely...
A stubborn enough can argue with a stop sign and win if he genuinely cares more about the victory than the consequences.
Interracial marriage is safe until Justice Thomas hits a rough spot in his marriage.
Personally I think marriages should only be allowed if both people own a domestic vehicle.
You just banned everyone in NYC from getting married
Do they drive imports?
No one drives, there's too much traffic
It's crazy how "No one drives" and "there's too much traffic" can be a part of the same sentence, and still be correct.
Just buy one to park, I hear spots are cheap there.
Parking spots have a higher income than most residents
Really?
Parking is expensive in New York City?
You learn something everyday.
Do you?
Do horses count?
Not if it's Arabian.
Can you fuck the pope bareback in the woods?
/s? I'm guessing so, but you can never be sure out here lol.
If not /s, then why?
My grandma was driving a civic when she drunkenly drove into a tree.
Wouldn't want any of them horrible poor people to have a shot at happiness
I just really hate KIAs.
It's okay, it's mutual, the KIAs hate you right back
So if someone's religion did not believe "christianity" was a valid religion, they could refuse to give a license to a christian couple.
Be careful what power you give the people, they can use it against you.
This is the only way anything like this changes. Hopefully some folks at city hall will do just this and turn it around on the doofuses.
Satanic Temple, if you're reading this...
Ordained Ministers of Satan can perform weddings...but they're more about proving a point by allowing everyone to do something, rather than by restricting people. So they'd be good ones to go to to officiate marriages if refused elsewere.
@prole @Teon
Unfortunately, one of the conservatives' strategies at play here is they only give "right of conscience" to people with political power over other people.
They aren't giving normal citizens the right to object to anything, they're giving unelected officers the right to torment those beneath them.
And unless you're willing to be as evil to innocent people as they are, you can't fight that war.
In the end what they're destroying here is the rule of law itself.
If I were in a government position in TN that gave out marriage licenses, I would stop giving them to straight couples... It's not evil, it's a protest to make a point.
Only if good people can get into the public offices in the first place.
No cookie for guessing what will the secret interview question to become a marriage officer will be in those States.
Kim Davis flashbacks.
TIL She had a meeting with the Pope).
Religious freedom only exists to enforce religion and deny other freedoms.
Yes
Gross.
Yes.
Honestly I don't see the problem. If someone wants a religious ceremony then they should agree to the rules of that religion. If they religion doesn't want to do it that should be religious freedom.
If they don't want a religious ceremony then they can get a civil partnership or whatever which is legally the same without the religious marriage. Or go to another religion.
Religion is stupid in my opinion and the more ridiculous it is allowed to be (excluding forcing children or people outside of the religion to do things) then I think fucking go for it, it will allow people to see the ridiculousness and turn people off.
County clerks are an elected position in TN. If someone were to refuse to sanctify Christian unions then they would be out of a job the next election cycle or more likely removed from office.
In the name of Baphoment, ruler of Satan, prince of darkness, I pronounce you man and whore!
GOP continue to be pieces of trash. I really wish the party would just die off, but Trumpism gave them a bolder fascist to believe in.
Now tell me, what do you think about banks refusing service to LibsofTikTok ?
It's bad when private entities discriminate. It's a million times worse when the government does.
Edit: I did forget to mention though, being a bitch isn't a protected class...sexual orientation is.
Agreed! Refusing to service customers based on their Sexual Orientation is EXACTLY like refusing to service customers who use your service to threaten to bomb Elementary Schools and Children's Hospitals!
Anyone who defends Chaya Raichik should be dumped in the same pit with her. I'm just glad you assholes always out yourselves.
Love it. We don't need official institutions enabling hatred. Yes, banks are evil otherwise, but we don't need public culture war nonsense from them as well.
Sounds good to me. Go fash, go die in the trash.
It's a good start? Can we punch them in other places that hurt? More please?
Take your pick. I feel all 3 earnestly.
Private businesses can refuse service to those they don't want to do business with as long as they aren't doing it on race, gender, sexuality or something along those lines. A shitty tiktoker doesn't have that protection.
A government official ought to be bound to perform their duty to all citizens whereas a bank is allowed to pick and choose whom it will do business with. Anything else I can clear up for you chief?
banks are part of the government?
no?
this is a pointless argument then.
I REFUSE to sign off on Republican Marriages!
You should actually try to get the job and do just that
Anyone can sign up to be a minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and legally perform marriages. I did and have. I don't know why you'd do it if your goal is to just not marry people, though.
In this case to make them repeal this idiocy by making it backfire on them. Malicious compliance
Specifically though to give the asshats that did this a taste of their own medicine
Most of the time a LEGAL marriage has nothing to do with a church/minister/religion at all. It's 100% a 'state' thing for filing of taxes, courtroom protections, power of attorney etc. Getting married in a church doesn't grant any of those things. Having a piece of paper from your 'state' is what makes it legal in the government's eyes. If the government won't sign off, you're not LEGALLY married, just socially.
Right. As a minister performing a marriage, your legal responsibility is just to sign as a witness on a marriage license. To do so, you have to be one of a handful of classes of people who can do it. Religious authorities are one of those. My registration with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes me such a person, enabling me to wed folks.
Congress should just pass a law to allow online marriage services so someone in a progressive state can marry anyone who needs to get married in a shithole state.
Make all federal recognition of marriage based on a federal license.
I can re-register my car, re-issue my license, change or verify my voter info online, even all the gods hope file my taxes online cheaply(cough free) these days. I dont see why two consenting adults who both file the info shouldn't be able to... but then minds would explode. I mean we recently found out that alabama thinks that eggs are actual humans, which opens so many food based questions I'll stop going.
Fucking SCOTUS bait. This is to overturn Hodges
In case anyone else was wondering, you might know this case better as Obergefell (since SCOTUS cases are typically informally called by the plaintiff's name).
And Loving v. Virginia is next.
The act of Clarence Thomas voting to overturn Loving will be America's pinnacle act of irony. Nothing will top it.
I can imagine him literally writing in his concurrence: "It is time to pull the ladder up behind us."
I’ve been predicting it for years that that’s what will happen
My understanding is that Thomas wants to end Loving and allow bans on interracial marriage because he wants to expose how racist America is and to radicalize black Americans into separatism.
Like the goal is to show black Americans that racist whites run the country and that they will prevent you from marrying other races because they hate you and consider you to be The Other. And it is impossible to change their minds on this. Which is why the Constitution and caselaw cannot protect us. Instead, we need to self-segregate away from whites and form our own communities away from them. Similar to the Amish or the hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in NYC.
Thomas in some ways has more in common with Marcus Garvey than Ronald Reagan. It's just an incredibly cruel and largely contradictory version of Garvey's racial separatism
Very creative and all but... You do know about his wife, right?
The white lady who helped plan the insurrection?
Yeah, she isn't an issue with any of this. His point is that if it wasn't for SCOTUS then interracial marriage would still be banned. And he wants to make that true so that others are radicalized by it.
Him being deprived of his own marriage would just be seen by him as effective additional propaganda - would show that no matter how high black people climb in society, whites will still destroy their lives. Which would help show that integration is an impossibility, which is his goal
Thomas is going to be all in on overturning Loving v. Virginia.
What’s done in secret brings public shame. Those legislators are a disgrace.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the Tennessee House of Reps have been making an ass of themselves for quite some time and it may not change any time soon. Though one can hope voters start doing the right thing and ousting these conniving bigots.
Isn't this a federal law though? Is it normal practice to allow states to supercede federal law if they arbitrarily want to?
It's skirting the federal law by allowing all officials to refuse anyone for any reason. If they just said "no gay marriage in this state" or didn't recognize the union of married gay couples that would be illegal.
It's fucked up, and the intention is clear, but I'm sure the remaining officiants that will perform ceremonies for same sex couples will make themselves known and they will be busy.
Unfortunately they will also likely be targeted by extremists.
Also, it doesn't skirt federal law, per the article:
This might not cover all officiants, eg priests, but it covers state notary publics and government officials, which is really all this law is targeting anyway (I think religious people could already refuse).
Oh but they'll still try, and it'll end up dragging through court just like the last bitch that tried to object on religious grounds (y'know, the one that was divorced multiple times)
Henry VIII?
LoL. Kim Davis
I think they can still be sued if it's shown that they refuse only gay people. If they only married white people for instance they would absolutely be reamed in court.
What this does do is shift when the lawsuit can happen. Now we have to wait for evidence they they're discriminating since the law itself is not discriminatory.
If the person doesn't refuse to solemnize any other people other than gays it will be pretty damn easy to establish what they are doing. Also "religious" figure is pretty up in the air there is an online course that allows anyone to become an officiant. I guess there is money to be made in being a no frills gay officiant of a secular nature.
Time to pack their local government with allies and refuse some hetero marriages 😎
I think we non-Americans never hear names of these states in postive context.
That's an astute observation.
Well, that last doesn't exactly cast it in a positive light, either. But that's life in a red state for ya, there's a whole lot of gorgeous country that is (politically) painted bright red, unfortunately. While I've little need to travel presently, there aren't many southern states I'd go out of my way to spend money in, if I could help it.
We Americans don't either.
It's a real shame, because there is so much non-shit in these places too. As someone from one of these states (Ohio), it makes me sad to see my home turned into a punchline and a cautionary tale because of what the extremists have done. Sometimes it feels like we've been abandoned :(
Like your close neighbor WV, just take pride in not being Mississippi.
In general, the cities in red states are very progressive. New Orleans and Miami are two of the least small-c conservative cities you’ll find in the U.S., more akin to San Francisco than a place like Boston. (Boston has amazing universities and is progressive in policy but it was founded by puritans and isn’t exactly known for it’s late night parties and festivals.)
By contrast, more Californians voted for Trump than Texans. It’s mostly an urban/rural divide at this point and whether your state government is a horror show or not depends on whether your cities are large enough to create a majority after districts are drawn.
Also, there’s a lot of outrageous bills introduced by one state rep that will never get a vote. But they know they’ll result in clickbait articles and help them gain notoriety.
The people are friendly during the day, the food tastes good, the natural beauty is something else, and if your car breaks down chances are someone young will fix it for free someone old will give you a ride into town plus most of them have a 3rd worlder work ethic that allows them to build in temperatures that should kill you.
At the same time southern rage is a real plus scary thing and none of them are that far from lynching.
If you pass as white.
"We don't want to get rid of gay marriage" yea fuckers, we knew you were full of shit deplorables. This is beyond the fucking pale.
I think we should get rid of marriages entirely. It's bad, complicated law, and the people getting into it often don't understand it. Plus religion sucks ass. There has to be a better way to share assets and custody and taxes.
How would you handle sponsorship for immigration?
Why are the conservatives so homophobic? Are they having sex with your husbands or something?
I had a gay man hit me in a gay bar. I said sorry I'm straight and he called me a tease. I was sorta flattered. This must be what females feel all the time.
we wound up in a gay bar on a bucks night pub crawl once and it was awesome. also one of the only times in my life I was hit on and yeah, it's flattering!
Did you end up having sex with him? No? Hm.... still not sure why they are still so homophobic.
exactly! just enjoy the compliment
If you live in this shit states the most important thing you can do in your whole life is leave.
As someone who did, I understand the sentiment but it isn't that easy. I have so many friends and family members who are stuck there because they can't save enough resources to leave.
People are like marching through the American Southwest desert into a country actively trying to stop them which speaks a totally different language and with children and they can't move within their native country?
I did it. I grew up in deep Appalachia. Packed a backpack and went on a bus. That is no where near the difficulty level an illegal faces.
Funny how many people renting apartments with an hourly job will say that though
Yeah.. almost like they're stuck in a cycle of poverty and can't save enough money for a down payment for a house either.
So 'funny'.
Almost as if moving across the country is expensive, and they can’t save up enough to front the cost. Hell, moving in general is expensive, but doubly so when you’re uprooting your entire life.
Wdym?
The idea being you can get an hourly job and an apartment just about anywhere. The only real expense is moving your shit. Most everything else is time.
Edit: Jesus Christ this place is cancer sometimes. Imagine being downvoted for explaining someone else's point because people don't agree with it. Just reddit with angrier voices.
Time and effort to restablish a local social network, but people don't want to admit that they're mostly just scared of being alone in a new area.
Okay, I live in a shit hole state, and want out. The certification process for my career (teaching) costs money - I will likely have to pay money for a background check as well as the certification paperwork. I can’t work as a teacher because I am transgender in Oklahoma (it was safe five years ago, it is no longer). So I am doing gig work.
Is the solution really buy to drive in a random direction and hope for the best? I already have severe PTSD from needing to do sex work to survive in college, the idea of being in even more dire financial straits is the kind of thing that makes me shake. Do I need to find a weekly hotel while I try to find a job that’ll help me secure an apartment? I’m struggling with doing that here so the idea of trying to just make it work somewhere else doesn’t seem likely.
“Just move” is not helpful advice on these threads. I’m trying. The things that make me need to move are also the things that make it difficult for me to move.
I'm sorry to hear that. What's your plan? I'm in Tennessee myself and planning on Colorado or Ireland.
I'm going to see how 2024 goes to decide whether I need a new state or a new republic.
#1 wait for my bf to graduate and move to Illinois
#2 try to get a job teaching in China? I doubt China is that much better as far as LGBT rights, but as a laogai I’m probably novel and white enough to not be bothered.
#3 kill myself when Kevin Shitt signs an executive order banning adult HRT, or get murdered by a cop for not having the twig and berries that corresponds to the “M” on my drivers license.
Or fucking vote.
Leaving is rarely an option for the people most in danger or most oppressed anyway.
Its really unfortunate because one of the best national labs in the country is in Tennessee.
Ornl complains about brain drain all the time!
Tennesseeans are dumb as shit.
Oh please let someone refuse to marry a hetero couple.
They will if they're mixed race.
I had an Ortho Jewish professor for several college classes relay casually in class one day t that neither he nor his RC wife converted to marry and her church declined to bury her with head to marker because of her heresy. It's not that big of a stretch back to that. We're regressing.
They yearn to be the first christofacist state. They have some competition with Alabama raising their game with embryos
Thankfully, not everyone around here is a bigot. My officiator was an employee at the DMV who was very happy to be a part of my gay wedding in the DMV parking lot. Three years this August.
In before "you need to be licensed to officiate in AL" and "our licensing board can refuse to license on moral grounds".
This headline is so headline grabby. Sure the local fucking bigot won't do it, but practically anyone can qualify as eligible for solemnizing a marriage.
I think it's real shitty what they did and are trying to do, don't get me wrong, but LGBTQ are not going away and there's a lot more supporters than haters out there. Even in red states many supporters remain silent to avoid the loud dumb bigots.
"real shitty"
does that mean it doesn't affect you so fuck it who cares ? Because we did that in the USA for centuries and fuck that. It was real shittier.
No
I can see making an exception for "religious figures" but the idea that a public servant, like a government official or to lesser extent notary public, can deny service to someone based on their personal beliefs is problematic and certainly something that should be reported on.
They're doing this to tee up a challenge to Obergefell.
Wait.. aren't you people the same one's telling everyone they can't tell you what to do with your body, but here you want to demand someone give up their choice? If one person refuses, move on to the next. A lot of you don't understand the word freedom, or hypocrite.
Let's say it's my religion that I think you should not be allowed to drive because I don't like you. Now let's say I work at the DMV and you walk up, should I be allowed to deny you a license because it's my religion?
I'll go to the next clerk.
And if it's a one-horse town and there's no alternative clerk?
Did you read the article? it's not the clerk that this relates to it's the officiant. so first of all your example it total bullshit stickman argument. Second, anyone with an internet connection can become 'ordained' and eligible to be an officiant in a wedding. I know this because I have done it myself, and my coworker sitting next to me does this OFTEN. Third there is no "gotcha" here. You're simply mad because people are being given freedom to choose.
Is it "freedom to choose" when a restaurant tells black customers "we don't serve your kind"?
An officiant isn't a government entity.
For a business to discriminate in many parts of the US, there may be only 1 bakery, or bank, or car rental place, etc. Some places are small, you can't just "go to someone else" when you only have One option. Almost all business are considered “places of public accommodation”.
For government to discriminate we have the same issue. Many offices have very few employees in MOST of the US. Only large metropolitan cities have, almost adequate, staff. There are not 100 court clerks in Podunk Alabama, or Nowhere Nevada. These places probably have 1 clerk doing multiple jobs.
If you own a business, or work in a government job, you serve the public. That means every nice person, and every freak you hate. This ain't no hamburger at Burger King, you don't get to "have it your way".
Nobody should have the right to infringe upon others' rights. Look up the paradox of tolerance.
it's not infringing though. they aren't saying you can't, they are saying they won't.
So, if an Amish person decided to work at the DMV, they should be able to refuse driver's licenses to everyone? It's against their beliefs, after all. (I don't know if it technically is, but play along, for the sake of argument.) Or... Should they maybe just not have that job, since it's a matter of what is legally required to do something? Whether it's 1% or 100% of the population, it's their beliefs that are more important, right?
Edit: I know this is a shitty argument. That's the point.