Public servants should not choose which members of the public they serve
Published March 9, 2015
Editorial by Burlington Times-News, March 6, 2015.
Public servants do not get to choose which members of the public they serve. But the state Senate would make an exception if those employees don’t want to provide legally mandated services to same-sex couples.
Instead, the senate — 30 Republican members and two Democrats, anyway — would inconvenience all taxpayers rather than require public employees to do their job. A bill that passed 32-16 in the senate would require marriages to be performed only for 10 hours of a 40-hour workweek, as long as there were hours on three different days. Employees who didn’t want to perform the duties of their office would be exempt, as long as they participated in no marriage-related duties.
That is how far some of our lawmakers would go to enforce discrimination.
At issue, of course, is the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that required North Carolina and other states in its jurisdiction to permit same-sex marriage. Apoplectic at that decision, Republican legislative leaders pledged to continue the fight, even as Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper said he would abandon it as a lost cause and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Most federal appellate courts have agreed that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the Constitution. One, the Sixth Circuit appellate court in Cincinnati, disagreed, and the case will be decided by the Supreme Court this year. Until then, judges have ruled that states must issue marriage licenses. We’ll be happy with the High Court gives its ruling on this issue once and for all.
Rather than addressing the many pressing problems they face, including a forecast revenue shortfall for the remainder of the budget year, state lawmakers are busy trying to administer taxpayer-funded jobs as a cafeteria plan, with employees being permitted to decide which parts of their job they don’t wish to do.
Reasonable accommodations for religious beliefs are required, but there is a serious problem when those accommodations allow public servants to discriminate against or poorly accommodate the citizens who pay their salaries. Civil rights lawyers say the measure will almost certainly be declared unconstitutional, meaning our Republican-led General Assembly, which campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility, is wasting more of our tax dollars to enforce discrimination against some North Carolinians.
The Register of Deeds Office issues paperwork. A magistrate does not sanctify a marriage before God — religious institutions do that, and they are not required to perform ceremonies for couples who do not meet their institution’s religious test. In other words, the government cannot force churches to do the government’s bidding. But the government can and should require public employees to carry out the job they were hired to do.
North Carolina residents should be able to get a marriage license during normal business hours, or be married when a magistrate is in the building. Otherwise, the budgets for both magistrates and registers of deeds employees should be cut.
After all, if they’re not doing their full job, why should the taxpayers pay their full salary?
