Rose Marie Belforti is … well, confused

I do not want to call his lady a dolt, but she does seem to have a very strange idea of what her duties and responsibilities as a town clerk entail.

Ms Belforti likes to “help people,” but she is morally opposed to same-sex marriage, based on her Christian beliefs and her understanding of the Bible. As a result, she refuses to sign marriage licenses for such marriages, even though the state has deemed them legal.

But the role of a town clerk is not that of town moral judge. Ms Belforti has no more “right” to refuse to sign a legal marriage license than she does to refuse sign the marriage license of an interracial couple, should she have religious reservations about it. Or to refuse to sign the marriage license of a Muslim couple, if she feels that they are wedding in a false or evil religion. Or to sign the marriage license where one or both of the parties is divorced, if she were a Catholic and morally opposed to divorce and remarriage. Or to sign the marriage license of a couple of different religions, should her faith tell her that’s wrong.

She’s not hired by the town government to pass moral and religious judgment on who should or should not get married. She’s there to sign the paperwork certifying it’s properly filled out and the parties are legally allowed to wed. That’s all.

For her to impose her religious views in her civil position is unconstitutional. It’s illegal, and a violation of her terms of employment (and, should she have sworn an oath upon taking office, probably of the terms of that oath).

But, one might say, what about her own religious views? Isn’t forcing her to do something against her religious beliefs an unconstitutional imposition?

No. Because nobody is forcing her.

If she is morally unable to fulfill the condition of the job, then barring any reasonable accommodation, she should quit. Or, if she will not quit, be fired. She cannot be force to violate her conscience on the job, but that doesn’t give her the right to say no. It gives her the right to leave.

Now, what might be a reasonable accommodation? There’s been some talk in this case about having the local deputy clerk sign marriage licenses. As long as every license is so signed, and all applications, regardless of sex or religion or how they stand in Ms Belforti’s moral estimation, go through the same process, then I could see that as “reasonable.” The voters of her township might ask why they are paying her to do things she’s delegating to others to do, but that’s up to them. And, in fact, New York law allows for such delegation (and requires the governing body to accommodate such conflicts of conscience).

But if the suggestion is that gay couples have to track down the deputy clerk, but everyone else (that Ms Belfonti morally approves of) gets her signature, then, no, that’s not a reasonable accommodation.  That’s discriminatory.

In general, though, if you’re not willing to do the job because it appears to violate your conscience — whether it’s a specific religious tenet or just what you feel is right — then perhaps you shouldn’t do that job any more.  If your employer can work around it, that’s great.  But if your employer can’t, then perhaps you aren’t in the right job.

Now, taking a principled moral stand may be applauded.  People who risk much because of their faith are generally admired — unless we find the ends of that stand to be less than admirable.  Murderous terrorists who slaughter civilians in the name of Allah, for example, are rarely applauded in the US for their pious zeal, even though they are apparently putting far more on the line for their faith than Ms Belforti.

And the question of ends is where we come around full circle.  The Courage Fund, which put together this lovely, touching video, isn’t out to protect all people whose religious beliefs are in conflict with their job requirement.  They’re focused specifically on the cases of town clerks in New York who don’t want to sign marriage licenses for gay couples.  Because their guiding principle is not freedom of conscience, but that same-sex marriage (as demonstrated by the scare quotes they put around the term) is awful and shouldn’t be allowed.

To illustrate this  …

• Consider someone whose religious beliefs are such that they feel war (in general, or some particular war) is immoral and anything having to do with it is wrong.  While there is a long tradition of conscientious objection to excuse one from military service, we’re hypothetically talking about someone who already has a job at the Pentagon, and because of a changing circumstance, like an unjust war being declared or a personal epiphany, finds themselves faced with a challenge not present when they took that job.  Could they simply, in the Courage Fund’s eyes, refuse to sign papers for troop movements, or requisitions for ammunition, or things like that?  Would the Courage Fund say their job should be protected as part of religious freedom?
• If a teetotaler town clerk be declined to sign a business license for a new pub, would that be the same thing to the Courage Fund?  What about someone whose faith opposed dancing, deciding not to sign business licenses for a new dance hall.  Or someone whose faith demands modest dress for women deciding not to sign off on a business license for a clothing store whose fashions they disapproved of.  What would the Courage Fund say in such cases?
• If a Muslim (or Christian, or Jewish) FBI agent decided that it violated her religious beliefs to report on a radical and violent member of her faith, would the Courage Fund defend that person’s employment as the freedom of “sincerely-held religious beliefs”?
• What if I were morally appalled at the idea of laying off someone in an economic downturn, that I felt a personal religious obligation, as a Christian, to help keep that from happening?  If I refused to let someone go when ordered to do so by my boss, would the Courage Fund make cool videos of me if my ass were going to be fired, too?
• Consider the other cases I mentioned above of possible religious opposition to particular classes of marriage.  Would the Courage Fund be as quick to defend them?
• If someone thought that marriage was only for homosexuals (“We need at least a few decades to catch up!”), and refused to sign marriage licenses by straight couples, would the Courage Fund be so eager to support them?

I suspect that in all of the above cases the Courage Fund would be nowhere to be found. Because they’re not pro-religious freedom, they’re pro-religious freedom-to-discriminate against gays.

It’s part of a multi-front battle the Religious Right is fighting over blocking or stalling gay marriage, even as general public opinion (and the tides of demographic change) turn against them.  When courts started recognizing these rights, they denegrated the courts and said that it was up the the legislatures.  As legislatures have started passing these laws, they’re pooh-poohing the legislative process (as in this video) and demanding public referenda.  And eventually referenda will get passed, at which point the results be challenged in the courts.

And, all along the way, they’ll be fighting for special “conscience” clauses — with or without “accomodation” — so that they are free to continue to discriminate — into the future, just as similar conscience clauses are being fought after in other area (employment, medical treatment such as abortion, medical prescriptions such as contraceptives).

To Ms. Belforti, all I can say is, if you are morally opposed to gay marriage, then I urge you not to marry another woman.  And to, as you are so moved, speak out about such things, amongst your friends, your family, your church, your community.  But your role as a town clerk is to uphold and act upon the law of your town, county, and state, not the law of the Bible.

If that’s too uncomfortable a distinction for you, and if the town is not able to accommodate your discomfort in a way that does not discriminate some of your lawful clientele, perhaps you should find other employment that doesn’t force you to violate your conscience.  Or make a moral stand and get yourself fired as a protest statement.  But don’t expect everyone to simply let your conscience exert veto power over what is legally permitted (and licensed) in your town, because that’s not how democracy works.