Taking straight folks in to be married right away and making the gay couple drive to another county or wait until later in the week for another employee is not equal protection.

If I read the story correctly, the appointment is required for all:

“It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s a homosexual couple or a heterosexual couple. If they show up, they are told they will need to make an appointment.”

Jim,

The women own a home in Cayuga County, where Ledyard is located, making the selection an obious one.

Cayuga Co is 900 sq. miles and has a population of about 80,000. It has population 1,886 and abuts Scipio, of which it was once part.

Cayuga County’s total population for 2000 was 81,963. The largest proportion of this population resides within the center of the County and includes the City of Auburn with a population of 28,574, surrounded by the five towns of Sennett, Throop, Owasco, Fleming and Aurelius. Other than the City of Auburn, there are twenty-three incorporated towns in Cayuga County ranging in population from Brutus with 4,777 residents in 2000 to Sempronius with 893 residents.

The women own a home about a mile outside another small city and about 15 miles from Ledyard. And though they had to drive through three other cities to get there, they opted to request their marriage license in Ledyard.

Now it is entirely possible that they unknowingly wandered into Ledyard unbeknown of the certain fate of that request and on the spur of the moment were inspired to marry by Ledyard’s charm and beauty. But when I smell contrivance – and say so – I’m thinking that I’m the one with “obvious” on my side.

To all,

Yes, yes, obviously we are right and she is wrong. And it goes as certain that she will lose any ensuing legal battle. Of course Rose Marie should do her job and of course she isn’t entitled to deny equality and of course she should “serve everyone or quit”.

But just what the hell will we gain from this? Will a solitary gay person benefit? Nope.

This is one of those “well, I’ll show her” moments. “She won’t get away with this!!”

No. She won’t.

Even if we have to appear to be outsiders pushing our way into a small town to “impose our agenda” on the locals. Even if we have to create discrimination in order to object to it.

I guess it’s a sign of progress that we have to use contrived discrimination. I guess that means that we have no real battles to fight.

But sometimes, folks, it’s smarter not to be the aggressor, even when you are in the right. Sometimes it’s wiser to treat the oddities as such instead of raising their stature to one of importance.

Now Rose Marie will be a hero in the eyes of her people. Now more money will be raised by anti-gay activists. Now a martyr has been created out of whole cloth. The anti-gays are delighted.

But as for our community, the only thing we have gained is a story that we have to explain to Aunt Thelma at Thanksgiving. And so now we all get the “Yes, but the poor woman assigned someone else” conversation.

Sorry, but I don’t think this was a good idea at all.

And every time that happened, I had the choice to go with it or pound sand. The difference between me and these conservative religious types is I didn’t get the ADF to take out press releases about it.

They are pathetic people.

Requiring an Orthodox Jew to sample non-kosher food would be forcing them to violate their religion, but demanding that they issue a license to or perform an inspection of a non-kosher restaurant isn’t, even if they wouldn’t feel free to patronize the restaurant.

This woman was asked to check ID and documentation and file some government paperwork. She was not asked to marry another woman, or have sex with another woman, or even to conduct a religiously binding ceremony for a same-sex couple. She is welcome to feel that the two women are not married in the eyes of God. She is not welcome to claim her religion forbids her from typing.

But we don’t do anyone any favors by buying into the idea that she was somehow asked to do something in violation of her personal religious beliefs. I know of no religion that prohibits filing. And if there is one, it would be neutral with regards what precisely is being filed.

And even if she does have a point, does she reserve the right to deny licenses to divorced people, or non-Christians, or people who make it clear that they will have an open marriage?