Public officials in Tennessee can now refuse to grant a marriage license to anyone at their own discretion, for any reason.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed into law House Bill 878 on Wednesday, which took effect immediately. The bill — just a few sentences in length — only states that “a person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage.” Only state notary publics, government officials, and religious figures can “solemnize” a marriage in Tennessee, according to state code.
None of the sponsors behind the bill have been made public statements on its introduction or passage, nor have they given comment to media organizations. The only known remarks regarding the law from state Rep. Monty Fritts (take a guess), who sponsored it in the House, are from February of last year, when he spoke to the state Subcommittee on Children and Family Affairs.
“As societal views change about what constitutes a marriage, officiants must be able to refuse to solemnize marriages that are contrary to their beliefs. The government has a responsibility to protect the exercise of religious beliefs," he said, via CNN. "Those with the authority to perform civil ceremonies would also be permitted to refuse to solemnize marriage for reasons of conscience.”
So if someone’s religion did not believe “christianity” was a valid religion, they could refuse to give a license to a christian couple.
Be careful what power you give the people, they can use it against you.This is the only way anything like this changes. Hopefully some folks at city hall will do just this and turn it around on the doofuses.
Kim Davis flashbacks.
TIL She had a meeting with the Pope).
After receiving a surprise phone call from a church official, the Kentucky county clerk says she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she and her husband Joe met the pope Sept. 24 at the Vatican Embassy.
“I put my hand out and he reached and he grabbed it, and I hugged him and he hugged me,” Davis said. “And he said, ‘thank you for your courage.’”
Religious freedom only exists to enforce religion and deny other freedoms.
Yes
Satanic Temple, if you’re reading this…
Ordained Ministers of Satan can perform weddings…but they’re more about proving a point by allowing everyone to do something, rather than by restricting people. So they’d be good ones to go to to officiate marriages if refused elsewere.
“Not if we gerrymander and marginalize them, until our great Leader returns and removes them all.” - (voters who wish to remain anonymous)
Only if good people can get into the public offices in the first place.
No cookie for guessing what will the secret interview question to become a marriage officer will be in those States.
Yes.
Honestly I don’t see the problem. If someone wants a religious ceremony then they should agree to the rules of that religion. If they religion doesn’t want to do it that should be religious freedom.
If they don’t want a religious ceremony then they can get a civil partnership or whatever which is legally the same without the religious marriage. Or go to another religion.
Religion is stupid in my opinion and the more ridiculous it is allowed to be (excluding forcing children or people outside of the religion to do things) then I think fucking go for it, it will allow people to see the ridiculousness and turn people off.
County clerks are an elected position in TN. If someone were to refuse to sanctify Christian unions then they would be out of a job the next election cycle or more likely removed from office.
In the name of Baphoment, ruler of Satan, prince of darkness, I pronounce you man and whore!
What’s done in secret brings public shame. Those legislators are a disgrace.
Agreed. Unfortunately, the Tennessee House of Reps have been making an ass of themselves for quite some time and it may not change any time soon. Though one can hope voters start doing the right thing and ousting these conniving bigots.
The most terrifying aspect is that it isn’t just gay marriage at stake here - Interracial marriages, atheist marriages, inter-abled marriages… ALL marriages are at risk if a person you’ve never met won’t sign a piece of paper.
Find one who refuses to marry Republicans, or whites, or straight couples and watch the bitching fly.
Be funnier if alot went along with it.
Moonies do have a religious argument against solemnizing same race marriages. They won’t, and they’re a cult, but they are the only religion to my knowledge to prioritize interracial marriage
Hey I remember you, any luck on that feeding Taylor Swift Taco Bell to turn your wife bisexual thing?
Not yet, not for lack of trying.
Saying that, she’s flying out for a “girls weekend” and her friend is hot and slutty, and there will be wine.
I can hope
Keep reaching for TayTay’s vajayjay, my friend.
Very well. Despite having no power to perform a wedding and certainly not in a state I have only been to one time in my life I am officially declaring that I will not marry a straight couple. It umm goes against my religion. The first church of anidiotsayswhat.
Your love Tennessee, your move
Personally I think marriages should only be allowed if both people own a domestic vehicle.
You just banned everyone in NYC from getting married
Do they drive imports?
No one drives, there’s too much traffic
It’s crazy how “No one drives” and “there’s too much traffic” can be a part of the same sentence, and still be correct.
Just buy one to park, I hear spots are cheap there.
Parking spots have a higher income than most residents
Really?
Parking is expensive in New York City?
You learn something everyday.
Do horses count?
Not if it’s Arabian.
Can you fuck the pope bareback in the woods?
/s? I’m guessing so, but you can never be sure out here lol.
If not /s, then why?
My grandma was driving a civic when she drunkenly drove into a tree.
Wouldn’t want any of them horrible poor people to have a shot at happiness
I just really hate KIAs.
It’s okay, it’s mutual, the KIAs hate you right back
I’m not worried I have a USB cable.
I’m trans, that’s been the case for me… my entire gender identity at one point hinged on me making empty legal threats I had no way to back up to gaslight people at the DMV to sign off on something that I already had enough legal documentation to get signed off on.
There was a time when I was federally Female and in my state Male.
Thank God the bitch behind the register who kept using “It” and “They” to refer to me didn’t call my bluff about “Coming back with my Lawyer”… soon as I said that, she clammed up, used the correct pronouns and gave me an F on the gender marker.
Fucking hells they called you “it”?! I am really sorry you had to experience that. Where I am she would be lucky to keep her job.
This was back in 2012/2011 the world’s changed a lot since then, today, the paperwork would likely be enough unless I was in an insanely red county
That’s what’s sort of mind boggling about all of this. Society has already decided to support LGBT rights. Republicans are just reopening a war that’s already been lost.
That’s what’s terrifying, they don’t see the writing on the wall, they can’t see it, their job depends on ignoring it completely…
A stubborn enough can argue with a stop sign and win if he genuinely cares more about the victory than the consequences.
Interracial marriage is safe until Justice Thomas hits a rough spot in his marriage.
Looks like they remembered that three new conservative Supreme Court justices had been added, and figured it was time to start chipping away at gay marriage.
And…This is what happens when the Supreme Court decides stare decisis is optional. If the Court doesn’t respect prior decisions, be prepared for every single issue to be re-litigated after members are added to or leave the Court.
Fucking SCOTUS bait. This is to overturn Hodges
And Loving v. Virginia is next.
The act of Clarence Thomas voting to overturn Loving will be America’s pinnacle act of irony. Nothing will top it.
I can imagine him literally writing in his concurrence: “It is time to pull the ladder up behind us.”
I’ve been predicting it for years that that’s what will happen
My understanding is that Thomas wants to end Loving and allow bans on interracial marriage because he wants to expose how racist America is and to radicalize black Americans into separatism.
Like the goal is to show black Americans that racist whites run the country and that they will prevent you from marrying other races because they hate you and consider you to be The Other. And it is impossible to change their minds on this. Which is why the Constitution and caselaw cannot protect us. Instead, we need to self-segregate away from whites and form our own communities away from them. Similar to the Amish or the hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in NYC.
Thomas in some ways has more in common with Marcus Garvey than Ronald Reagan. It’s just an incredibly cruel and largely contradictory version of Garvey’s racial separatism
Very creative and all but… You do know about his wife, right?
The white lady who helped plan the insurrection?
Yeah, she isn’t an issue with any of this. His point is that if it wasn’t for SCOTUS then interracial marriage would still be banned. And he wants to make that true so that others are radicalized by it.
Him being deprived of his own marriage would just be seen by him as effective additional propaganda - would show that no matter how high black people climb in society, whites will still destroy their lives. Which would help show that integration is an impossibility, which is his goal
Thomas is going to be all in on overturning Loving v. Virginia.
In case anyone else was wondering, you might know this case better as Obergefell (since SCOTUS cases are typically informally called by the plaintiff’s name).
Oh please let someone refuse to marry a hetero couple.
They will if they’re mixed race.
I had an Ortho Jewish professor for several college classes relay casually in class one day t that neither he nor his RC wife converted to marry and her church declined to bury her with head to marker because of her heresy. It’s not that big of a stretch back to that. We’re regressing.
Abrahamic genre for extra-spicy kick?
I think we non-Americans never hear names of these states in postive context.
We Americans don’t either.
In general, the cities in red states are very progressive. New Orleans and Miami are two of the least small-c conservative cities you’ll find in the U.S., more akin to San Francisco than a place like Boston. (Boston has amazing universities and is progressive in policy but it was founded by puritans and isn’t exactly known for it’s late night parties and festivals.)
By contrast, more Californians voted for Trump than Texans. It’s mostly an urban/rural divide at this point and whether your state government is a horror show or not depends on whether your cities are large enough to create a majority after districts are drawn.
Also, there’s a lot of outrageous bills introduced by one state rep that will never get a vote. But they know they’ll result in clickbait articles and help them gain notoriety.
By contrast, more Californians voted for Trump than Texans. It’s mostly an urban/rural divide at this point and whether your state government is a horror show or not depends on whether your cities are large enough to create a majority after districts are drawn.
Exactly. It’s a knock on-effect from the way our state and federal systems work that you can actually pull off a veto-proof legislative supermajority in a state like North Carolina, that went for Trump by literally 1.5% and has a Democrat as governor. Even in Texas, the margin in presidential elections is persistent and significant but is about 5:4. There is no one state full of assholes while someplace else is full of only smart and good people.
It’s a real shame, because there is so much non-shit in these places too. As someone from one of these states (Ohio), it makes me sad to see my home turned into a punchline and a cautionary tale because of what the extremists have done. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been abandoned :(
Like your close neighbor WV, just take pride in not being Mississippi.
That’s an astute observation.
TN is home not only to a motivated republican political class bent on ensuring their continued role overseeing the state’s people and determining what access to medical care should be available, but also to the Country Music Hall of Fame and to Jack Daniels Distillery. The latter is interesting and getting there takes you through beautiful country, but you should know it’s located in a “dry county” before you go and their products can’t be sold there.
TN is also the last state I’m aware of where fire departments were in recent years permitted to respond only to protect neighboring property rather than to protect the property which was actually on fire; but had not paid its subscription service
Well, that last doesn’t exactly cast it in a positive light, either. But that’s life in a red state for ya, there’s a whole lot of gorgeous country that is (politically) painted bright red, unfortunately. While I’ve little need to travel presently, there aren’t many southern states I’d go out of my way to spend money in, if I could help it.
The people are friendly during the day, the food tastes good, the natural beauty is something else, and if your car breaks down chances are someone young will fix it for free someone old will give you a ride into town plus most of them have a 3rd worlder work ethic that allows them to build in temperatures that should kill you.
At the same time southern rage is a real plus scary thing and none of them are that far from lynching.
and if your car breaks down chances are someone young will fix it for free someone old will give you a ride into town
If you pass as white.
If you live in this shit states the most important thing you can do in your whole life is leave.
As someone who did, I understand the sentiment but it isn’t that easy. I have so many friends and family members who are stuck there because they can’t save enough resources to leave.
People are like marching through the American Southwest desert into a country actively trying to stop them which speaks a totally different language and with children and they can’t move within their native country?
I did it. I grew up in deep Appalachia. Packed a backpack and went on a bus. That is no where near the difficulty level an illegal faces.
Funny how many people renting apartments with an hourly job will say that though
Yeah… almost like they’re stuck in a cycle of poverty and can’t save enough money for a down payment for a house either.
So ‘funny’.
Almost as if moving across the country is expensive, and they can’t save up enough to front the cost. Hell, moving in general is expensive, but doubly so when you’re uprooting your entire life.
Wdym?
The idea being you can get an hourly job and an apartment just about anywhere. The only real expense is moving your shit. Most everything else is time.
Edit: Jesus Christ this place is cancer sometimes. Imagine being downvoted for explaining someone else’s point because people don’t agree with it. Just reddit with angrier voices.
Time and effort to restablish a local social network, but people don’t want to admit that they’re mostly just scared of being alone in a new area.
Okay, I live in a shit hole state, and want out. The certification process for my career (teaching) costs money - I will likely have to pay money for a background check as well as the certification paperwork. I can’t work as a teacher because I am transgender in Oklahoma (it was safe five years ago, it is no longer). So I am doing gig work.
Is the solution really buy to drive in a random direction and hope for the best? I already have severe PTSD from needing to do sex work to survive in college, the idea of being in even more dire financial straits is the kind of thing that makes me shake. Do I need to find a weekly hotel while I try to find a job that’ll help me secure an apartment? I’m struggling with doing that here so the idea of trying to just make it work somewhere else doesn’t seem likely.
“Just move” is not helpful advice on these threads. I’m trying. The things that make me need to move are also the things that make it difficult for me to move.
I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your plan? I’m in Tennessee myself and planning on Colorado or Ireland.
I’m going to see how 2024 goes to decide whether I need a new state or a new republic.
Its really unfortunate because one of the best national labs in the country is in Tennessee.
Ornl complains about brain drain all the time!
Tennesseeans are dumb as shit.
Or fucking vote.
Leaving is rarely an option for the people most in danger or most oppressed anyway.
GOP continue to be pieces of trash. I really wish the party would just die off, but Trumpism gave them a bolder fascist to believe in.
Now tell me, what do you think about banks refusing service to LibsofTikTok ?
It’s bad when private entities discriminate. It’s a million times worse when the government does.
Edit: I did forget to mention though, being a bitch isn’t a protected class…sexual orientation is.
But she is a woman! How does your woke brain don’t go haywire knowing that a woman is a victim of sexism? Would you care if she was gay?
Discriminating against a woman isn’t sexism. Neither is discriminating against a man. Discriminating against anyone on the basis of their sex is sexism, and that’s not what’s happening here (unless the bank has hardly any women customers?)
Source: know how to use brain in ways other than making half-baked ideas of what other people may be thinking.
Again, smooth brain, if she’s being discriminated against because she’s a woman (gender is protected) that’s bad. If she’s being discriminated against because she’s gay (orientation is protected also), that’s bad. If it’s because of skin color, disability, religion, or national origin…those are bad too.
What a fucking gremlin.
Agreed! Refusing to service customers based on their Sexual Orientation is EXACTLY like refusing to service customers who use your service to threaten to bomb Elementary Schools and Children’s Hospitals!
If a gay person ran a business whose clientele had a disproportionally high rate of people who actively call in bomb threats to elementary schools, you might have made a really great point right here.
All she does is repost stuff that people posted themselves and you hold her responsible for people calling bomb threats. Why don’t you hold the people posting that shit responsible themselves?
To best of my knowledge, not a single person who has ever threatened to bomb children has liked my work enough to give me money.
Somebody who is liked by by literal cowards and terrorists can’t bank and that’s the civil rights agenda you are backing?
Listened to a lot of Alex Jones eh?
Often she just posts completely innocent things and blows them out of proportion. Like when she reposted a teacher saying she supports her Queer student and she was fired shortly after.
Anyone who defends Chaya Raichik should be dumped in the same pit with her. I’m just glad you assholes always out yourselves.
banks are part of the government?
no?
this is a pointless argument then.
A government official ought to be bound to perform their duty to all citizens whereas a bank is allowed to pick and choose whom it will do business with. Anything else I can clear up for you chief?
Thankfully, not everyone around here is a bigot. My officiator was an employee at the DMV who was very happy to be a part of my gay wedding in the DMV parking lot. Three years this August.
In before “you need to be licensed to officiate in AL” and “our licensing board can refuse to license on moral grounds”.
They yearn to be the first christofacist state. They have some competition with Alabama raising their game with embryos
“We don’t want to get rid of gay marriage” yea fuckers, we knew you were full of shit deplorables. This is beyond the fucking pale.
I REFUSE to sign off on Republican Marriages!
You should actually try to get the job and do just that
Anyone can sign up to be a minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and legally perform marriages. I did and have. I don’t know why you’d do it if your goal is to just not marry people, though.
In this case to make them repeal this idiocy by making it backfire on them. Malicious compliance
Specifically though to give the asshats that did this a taste of their own medicine
Most of the time a LEGAL marriage has nothing to do with a church/minister/religion at all. It’s 100% a ‘state’ thing for filing of taxes, courtroom protections, power of attorney etc. Getting married in a church doesn’t grant any of those things. Having a piece of paper from your ‘state’ is what makes it legal in the government’s eyes. If the government won’t sign off, you’re not LEGALLY married, just socially.
Right. As a minister performing a marriage, your legal responsibility is just to sign as a witness on a marriage license. To do so, you have to be one of a handful of classes of people who can do it. Religious authorities are one of those. My registration with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster makes me such a person, enabling me to wed folks.
Congress should just pass a law to allow online marriage services so someone in a progressive state can marry anyone who needs to get married in a shithole state.
Make all federal recognition of marriage based on a federal license.
I can re-register my car, re-issue my license, change or verify my voter info online, even all the gods hope file my taxes online cheaply(cough free) these days. I dont see why two consenting adults who both file the info shouldn’t be able to… but then minds would explode. I mean we recently found out that alabama thinks that eggs are actual humans, which opens so many food based questions I’ll stop going.
I think we should get rid of marriages entirely. It’s bad, complicated law, and the people getting into it often don’t understand it. Plus religion sucks ass. There has to be a better way to share assets and custody and taxes.
How would you handle sponsorship for immigration?
if i say she’s my girlfriend then she’s obviously not a terrorist, right?
Not a huge concern but I do fear polygamist taking advantage. That’s not to say polygamy is inherently bad. Just from what I know of polygamy it’s usually patriarchal and used to prey on vulnerable women.
I’m friends with multiple women and non-binary folks who are in poly relationships, are very much not being preyed upon, and actively hate anything “patriarchal”.
Irl the only people I know in poly are men in their 30s dating multiple teenagers 🤷♂️
a monogamist can do that too
I threw this out to an atheist I know who performs secular weddings. If it was legal and you knew that everyone was consenting adults and also knew no one was being pressured would you perform a poly wedding?
He said he would hesitate and really verify everyone was on the same page but would.
Does he do that with monogamous couples too? Bc vulnerable people are preyed upon all the time in those relationships as well.
I didn’t ask and don’t want to speak for him.
Fair answer
