Dear County Clerk, Magistrate, Registrar, Etc.,
Re: Marriage Licenses
Your
job – your only job – is to facilitate
the issuance and recording of legal marital contracts according to the laws of
the State in which you reside and by which you are employed.
It is not – and never has been – your job to adjudicate or discern which
couples are worthy of obtaining such documents. As long as the Law – as determined
by the Powers that Be (including, of course, the Supreme Court of the U.S.A.) –
determines that such couples are eligible for this legal documentation, it is
your sworn duty to facilitate
this legal transaction. As of last Friday, that includes many (but not all)
couples who happen to have the same gender identity.
Surely
this is not the first time a couple has approached your desk who gave you
pause. A man far too old to be marrying a woman (girl?) this young. An
interracial or interfaith couple – and you’re a devout Catholic, observant Jew,
or out-and-out racist (just to be clear: those identifications are in no sense equal). A couple that’s just
barely not kissing cousins. Two people you know can’t afford to raise
the baby in that teenaged girl’s belly. A man “whose Woman” has faint (or not)
bruises around her eyes. A couple who – in your small town – you know the dude’s been sleeping all
over and around.
Heck –
we all know that over 50% of the couples you license to wed are going to
divorce. Let’s assume you’re a part of a religious community that frowns on
divorce (like, for example, every
religious community I know of).
If you
are suddenly objecting to doing your
job when a couple asks for a marriage license – a completely and absolutely legal marriage license – simply because
they happen to be of the same gender, I wonder if it’s time for you to consider
another line of work.
Because,
I repeat, it is not – and never has been – your job to
sanctify or bless the marriages of the couples who come to you for completely and absolutely legal paperwork
testifying to their absolutely and completely legal marriage contract.
If you
have discerned that it is your vocation (calling) to decide which couples
should or should not be married, you should join me in my profession. Be a priest, pastor, rabbi, imam, or other
religious leader. (You can do it online, although people in my world frown on
such things… mostly because we’re going to be paying off our seminary
educations until we’re damn near retired.) I have, on many occasions, declined
to preside at a wedding of a couple that I believed was not prepared or suited
for the religious commitment entailed in a church wedding. Most of them ended
up getting a marriage license anyway. Many of them are divorced now (I told you so!).
The role of decision-maker re: God
and the Church’s blessing of a couple is complicated and heavy. AND:
That is a completely different job
than the one you currently hold.
Your job – your only job – is to facilitate the
issuance and recording of legal marital contracts according to the laws of the
State in which you reside and by which you are employed.
If you
are no longer able to do your job,
then I suggest you find another line of work.
Sincerely,
One of
the People who actually decides who should or should not have their marriage
blessed by the Church…and who happens to be totally indifferent to the genders
of the people involved.
