http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/02/1367217/-Sharia-law-North-Carolina-Republicans-empower-magistrates-to-refuse-to-marry-blacks-Jews-gays#
North Carolina Republicans' latest wedge issue gambit, Senate Bill 2 (An Act to Allow Magistrates [...] to Recuse Themselves From Performing Duties Related to Marriage Ceremonies Due to Sincerely Held Religious Objection), passed the state Senate Wednesday on a near party-line vote (Democratic senators Clark and Ford joining 30 Republicans voting aye, and Republicans Alexander and Tarte voting no with 14 Dems). Passage in the House, and signing by Governor Pat McCrory (R), are widely expected to follow shortly.
In North Carolina, civil weddings are performed by county magistrates - bottom-rung appointed officers of the court whose other duties include such mundane tasks as hearing misdemeanor cases, presiding in small claims court, administering oaths, setting bail, accepting guilty pleas, and issuing subpoenas. These are undemanding but good-paying jobs (requiring no post-secondary education, and paying as much as $57,000).
When a Federal court decision made same-sex marriage legal in North Carolina last October, eight NC county magistrates resigned their positions rather than face the prospect of violating their religious beliefs by marrying same-sex couples. It should be easy enough for reasonable people across the political spectrum to agree that those resignations were the right thing to do. If you cannot reconcile your personal beliefs with your job duties, you need to find a different job. An orthodox Jew working at an oyster bar, a Sikh in a slaughterhouse, a Quaker in the Marines, a Catholic in a Planned Parenthood clinic - clearly none have a right to expect their employers to accommodate their sincerely held religious objections, and so all need to re-evaluate their career options. It's no different for civil servants, nor should it be.
Rather than allow such an obvious solution to suffice, Republicans are rushing to turn the issue into a social conservative rallying point in the run-up to the 2016 elections in North Carolina (a state where voters' opinions are evenly divided, with 44% approving of same sex marriage and 47% disapproving, with a 3% margin of error).
Phil Berger (R), president pro tem of the state senate and SB2's primary sponsor, casts his argument for the bill in First Amendment terms:
“If we’re not about holding up the rights guaranteed by our constitution in this body, then all the other stuff eventually is not worth very much,” he said. “We’re not saying that the First Amendment outweighs any other right that might exist. We’re saying there should be an accommodation when there is a conflict.”
Judging by news reports, outnumbered opponents of SB2 offered all the right arguments during debate on the bill:
They compare the bill to the “separate but equal” accommodations of the South’s segregationist past.
[Senator Jeff] Tarte said [...] "magistrates must follow the instructions every jury receives: Uphold the law – even if you don’t agree with it."
“Can you not see that this bill takes us down a road that we must not go?” said Sen. Josh Stein, a Raleigh Democrat.
Immoderate as SB2 obviously is, still its greatest flaw isn't its inhumanity, but rather its obvious irrationality. Any judge who avails himself of SB2's recusal provision would be a judge who has gone on record as unable to faithfully perform the duties of his office. And none make this point more forcefully than do members of the group some have called 'The NC Hate Eight' - those magistrates who walked away from their jobs rather than fulfill their legal obligations. According to former Gaston County magistrate William Stevenson:
There comes a point where one has to choose between following the commands of the Lord and following the commands of the government.
republican know they live in a world not of their majority thinking but as much as the scream somebody's denying them their rights mostly to religious beliefs they do exactly the same to every other non evangelical who abide by law and live in a world of all of God's children except their God only fathered a few hateful racist. that is why they make laws like their state being a Christian state, the schools can't teach compassion and realism and how they must obey those that are directing them down a path that has very little longevity as the generations pass.
they need to pass a law that says if you usurp or violate the commandments as written not reinterpreted then you re not a Christian and you are free to call yourself anything but, evangelical is okay.
remember all bigots are not racist but all racist are bigots. but where does the Sharia law come in it's not mentioned in the article or my one eye missed it.
