As gay marriage gains momentum in Nevada dozens of Justices of Peace and county clerks may be forced to choose between performing what they consider to be an abomination or breaking the law.
“I don’t think there is any doubt about it,” said Janine Hansen President Nevada Families for Freedom. “Going by the laws that have been considered there is no provision for a Justice of the Peace or a County Clerk to refuse to perform a same sex marriage based on religious conviction. When gay marriage is legal in Nevada there may be a lot of judges and clerks who will have to make a choice.”
The legalization of Nevada gay marriage took a step closer this week when Governor Bryan Sandoval and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced the state would no longer defend Nevada’s Marriage Law which defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman.
“The Governor’s decision, not to defend Nevada’s Marriage law, is a disgrace and a slap in the face to the nearly 70% of Nevada’s voters who voted in favor of marriage between a man and a woman. We no longer have a government by the people, but by the unelected federal Judiciary. The Governor has bowed to the judiciary and capitulated to the anti-family lobby in our state,” Hansen said.
“Governor Sandoval no longer represents the people in the state of Nevada and has abandoned the will of the people in favor of political expediency. Sandoval believes that he can ignore the pro-family voters in Nevada,” she added. “Because of his huge war chest, he feels they will have no one else to support. I encourage all pro-family voters in Nevada to register their objections with their Governor and to support someone else for Governor who will represent the will of the people in Nevada.”
The decision not to defend the law is considered the next to the inevitable conclusion that Nevada will soon join a growing list of states that sanction gay marriage. And while some may celebrate religious Nevada JP’s and county clerks may be put between a rock and a hard place.
“I really don’t want to think about it,” said Elko County Clerk Carol Fosmo. “And I really don’t know what I would do if it came to that.”
A devout conservative Christian Fosmo like many if not most rural Nevada office holders was active in her church long before she became active in politics. And for conservative Christians, Muslims, devout Mormons and Orthodox Jews gay marriage is not just distasteful but an abomination not only between the two people involved but for anyone facilitating the union.
While gay activist liken their quest for marriage equality to the civil rights era when anti-miscegenation laws banned marriages across racial lines the theological differences are profound. While there are a few Christian sects that discourage interracial marriage, mixed race marriage is not forbidden in the Bible or the Koran. Homosexual relations are, and the ban is explicit.
Where mixed race and gay marriage are similar is not in the religious texts but rather in the secular non-discrimination laws that govern the land.
Already several wedding businesses have been targeted by both gay rights activists and state equality enforcement officers for refusing to provide services to gay weddings.
The owners of Sweet Cakes in Oregon earlier this year for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple sighting their Christian faith for not serving the couple’s wedding.
The couple – Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman then filed a complaint with the state of Oregon for Sweet Cakes’ refusal to bake their wedding cake.
Since then, the family owned bakery has received vicious attacks for politely refusing to bake their wedding cake, and on August 30 announced they will be closing up their shop, instead choosing to bake in the safety of their home. The bakery will sell to anyone regardless of their sexual orientation, but will not bake a cake exclusively for a same-sex wedding, because it goes against their Christian beliefs.
Also in August the New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed a decision against a photography studio that was sued after refusing to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony in 2006, saying the First Amendment does not permit businesses that offer services for a profit to choose whom to serve.
In its opinion, the court said that refusing to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony “is no different than refusing to photograph a wedding between people of different races.”
Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin, the owners of the studio, Elane Photography, in Albuquerque, oppose same-sex unions. In court papers, the Huguenins argued that they did not want to convey through pictures a conflicting “understanding of marriage,” and given that photography is a means of artistic expression, they were free to decide whom they want to photograph.
The threat of possible criminal or civil action against local JP’s and clerks who oppose gay marriage on religious grounds is in many ways similar to liberal JP’s who supported marriage equality privately in the soon to be by gone days when same sex marriage was against the law of the land with perhaps with one profound difference.
“I will always defer to state law,” said former West Wendover JP Lara Grant, when she was asked about performing gay marriage despite being in an open same sex union relationship herself.
But for many JP’s on the other end of the political spectrum deferring to secular law may not be that easy. Officiating a gay wedding for many is not just a question of legal or illegal but one of heaven or hell.