Focus on the Family’s ADF group contrives to break the law in Iowa
By John Amato Friday Apr 24, 2009 12:00pmThe Alliance Defense Fund, a group founded by James Dobson, is asking Iowa's county recorders who refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, free legal defense help against prosecution.
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a legal advocacy group founded in 1994 by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and the late Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, sent an e-mail to each of Iowa’s county recorders asking them to tell their staff that they “shall not be required to issue or process a marriage license, or to perform, assist or participate in such procedures, against that individual’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
The e-mail, which was sent out in conjunction with the Iowa Family Policy Center, says Iowa law protects citizens from being forced to “violate his or her conscience.”
The ADF then offers to “provide free legal review and defense” for any county recorder that adopts a “conscious clause” and is challenged “on the basis of its content.”
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Attorney General Tom Miller has repeatedly warned county recorders that they do not have the authority to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, and “recorders do not have discretion or power to ignore the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling,” Miller said.
The court’s ruling goes into effect Monday.
Iowa law says that an elected official can be removed from office for refusal to perform duties of the office or for willful or habitual neglect.
They lost in Iowa and now these religious extremists are asking the workers to participate in illegal behavior. Will they guarantee to help them keep their jobs after they are fired? How Christian is it to ask people to break the law?
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"god is on vacation"
also
"two flying saucers just landed on my plate"
I was gonna die listening to these cats. I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus
But, it's not mortal laws that governs pious folk like Focus on the Family. No, it's a much higher law: Sharia Law.
"Stone dem queers!"
Only if they say "Jehovah".
I'm fucking sick of these people using their religion to justify hate and discrimination.
I want a ring side seat to watch these "people" fry in it. With grease.
I live in good ole deep red Nebraskee and its amazing. Its like just across the river there are real human beins
are everyone's right, any county recorder who follows this plan should immediately get their ass fired.
All county recorders in Iowa are elected, all 99 of them. They don't have a legal choice as to which laws they will enforce and which ones they will ignore.
Isn't this the same organization that harbors pedophiles too?
At least they ain't married! That'd be evil!
If you can't or willnot do the job, find another job.
What is that called again when you incite a group of people to break the law?
Seems to me if someone wanted to be a hardcase, they could bring charges for suborning something or other.
..when the recorders do act with their conscious and distribute the licenses freely and without regard to sexual orientation.
It impresses so much to listen to these Bible Thumping people who have no sense of forgiveness in their evil little hearts and minds.
There are some religious groups that are very positive abd proactive- The local UU church is very inclusive, gay friendly, and doesn't preach hate. My problem is with the ultra right wingers
You come accross as sounding as venemous and hate filled as the radical right religious zealots...Two sides of the same coin methinks..
and as for me being a bigot? Please, I have been around religious types and Catholic Fundamentalists all my life...I will not go into my personal life completely here, but I am calling it as I see it and if you want to call me a "religious bigot," go ahead....
I do not need to be lectured by you, either, as to what a "bigot" is and isn't, okay????
Stop your goody two-shoes routine, already.
Dude...
I'm, a raving atheist who was raised in hardcore Catholic-Bible-thumpin' nutjob land but even I find your ranting pretty "venemous" as Tom said.
Attitudes like yours don't do any good. Remember: "You've got to be the change you want to see."
"Scum-sucker" is not a good way to represent yourself or others like you who think religion is bad for people. Comments like yours are used by "godly" types to smear us as angry and militant.
Please, try and show some humanity for those who aren't Humanist. :)
and all the lies and bigotry practiced by the churches here in America...I have no use for religion, period....and I don't care whether you like or accept my life.....
If want to be brainwashed by any church, then that is your business....so call me whatever you want, but, that will only make me view you as the real bigot!!!!!
Scoundrels usually call others names when they do not like total honesty and it was you Tom who fired the first shot at me and did not respect my anti-religous views....I have the right not to practice religion. It is my right of conscience to reject alll religion and religious beliefs....whether anyone likes or accepts it.
Seems to me you are the one calling others names....
I responded to your comment that ' religious people are scum'- a very bigoted comment btw. Hey, believe what you want, it's your right- i just don't get the raw hatred behind your words..
And btw, I'm an agnostic at best, but have noted my UU church is very proactive in the community, involved with gay rights, social issues, etc. Not all religious people are scum, despite your assertions.
But SOME religious people-as well as some athiests -are indeed scum.
Rabbitt ears at your nearest Wal-Mart...go buy some....
Again, I do not need any lecture by you....at all....
Your attitude gives East Coast-liberal-secularists a bad name.
From one EC-L-A to another, "chill."
and accurate too...I do not appreciate your intolerance of my views, either...I have a right to my anti-religious views and opinions...use whatever descriptive word you want about my views as well....
Nothing you say bothers me...
You know zero about my life and yet you want to get into a pissing contest with me over religion...
Tom----You are an ASS!!!!
I mean, I know some religious people who are very nice, friendly, gay ones too. And their belief system is very inclysive. I do also understand EastcoastLefty's anger, too. I get very angry about religion as some whose family is very rightwing religious also. I can't argue with them anymore, I simple either tune it out or tell them I cannot discuss it with them. That rarely works, and since I'm currently force to live with them my life is very miserable at present. So I have to keep the anger under control, lest I get out of control and labelled a major bigot. I don't want to be hate-filled, but it's not easy.
for understanding and supportive words....I know many gay friends who go to church too....I cannot completely understand them either, and ask them, how can you go there knowing you are hated by the hierarchy?
I do not wear a sign nor do I tell people outright what I think of their religion....Usually, I say, "I don't believe the way you do," and so on....I am not anti-social....
But, deep down, I have no use for religion or religous nonsense....what good does religion really do, other than to divide people along separate lines?
I do not have to like religion or what it stands for, either.
Tom Servo has the right to believe whatever he likes. I have the right to reject religious b.s. as well....
As far as I am concerned, when you die, that is it. That heaven and hell crap is meant for control by the elite hierarchy when you are here on earth....
Let go of your hate, Luke....lest you embrace the Dark Side.
;)
Seriously, it can eat you up....but it you want put it to some constructive use.
...but imposing personal values on others strikes at the heart of these miserable Goddamned hypocrites.
My problem is with BOTH radical right religious fundies who try to force their religious views on others, as well as the radical left athiests who trying to force athiesm on others.
Both sides attack the other by ridiculing the opposing beliefs.
Athiests ridiculing and aiming hatred at religious people are no different than religious people who ridicule and aim hatred at athiests. Hatred is hatred, no matter which direction it is coming from.
Man, you are no better than the ultra right extremists who preach hate- There is something called a middle ground, where there are sensible relgious people AND athiests who do more than just spew hatred..
Tom Servo...and you are such a goody two-shoes...want a star?
..and hate-filled comments.
ADF is inciting civil servants to violate the law; that's what we should chastise them for. Sexual deviance is not the issue here.
Are you sure that "Sexual deviance" has no "issue here" or is not linked in any way to their overall crusade including this one?
..same-sex weddings as "deviance" and that is their reason to incite civil servants to break the law. But the issue is that the religious right, the ADF, is trying to foist their views on a legal process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMPm9cqar1Y&fe...
I am a bisexual ex-evangelical who left evangelicism for much of the reasons you've listed as your grievances with religious people. But I am still, well, I suppose you could maybe call me "spiritual" more than anything else. I consider myself a liberal Christian primarily, but open to other things (example: Buddhist teachings are really helping me with PTSD symptoms right now).
I'm sorry that it sounds like you grew up quite possibly in the evangelical church, and that it was a hell on earth for you. I understand that, and I hear your anger - I honor and respect that anger just as I honor and respect my anger from spending precious years of my life as an evangelical - and you have every right to it.
But as someone who will be joining the Unitarian Universalist church as soon as she can, I implore you to understand that not all of us are hateful or so horrible like the folks mentioned in the article are.
I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist church, and we have a very diverse membership- There are Christians, Jews, athiests, Pagans, and agnostics like me - for many it's more of a philosophical experience than a religious one, but what I like is the vast diversity of views, and the CELEBRATION of the diversity, and there is a message of acceptance of others and tolerance. I'd say well over half of my congregation are gay, and everyone is cool with it..
I can understand how some people might be inclined to feel hate for religion, if they were personally victimized...But not all people with faith are evil- some are truly decent people..
that, and the fact that they stood up to people like my county clerk (the one who put a stop to civil weddings) and offered to marry anyone who wanted to be married by them.
And thank you, I agree! :)
I went to one once, and was a bit put off.
They guy deliver a speech (I guess they're not sermons) was about his recent cancer.
I suppose it was supposed to be inspiration that he beat it.
But it left me rather cold.
They were one of those churches during the service who encourage parishioners to hug each other.
I'm not a hugger.
But then I'm also not a joiner.
Some will feel more like "home" than others.... But then, I liked the hugging part of church! :P
I can't stand uber right wing Christians who feel the need to force their own philosophy of self hatred and oppression onto other people
And likewise, there are some athiests who spew hatred as well- hate is hate, no matter which direction it comes from.
I attend a Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon....St. Francis; that is unlike any other Catholic Church I have ever attended. They are accepting of everyone and anyone. They house the homeless and feed the hungry with their soup kitchen every day. The congregation is made up of some of the most kind and colorful people you could imagine...gay and straight, wealthy and those who have NOTHING.
Their focus is social justice, and they are active in local, national and international affairs. They exhibit what Christ would be proud to see.
I have attended Catholic Churches all my life, and NONE has been able to touch the apron strings of St. Francis. It is truly unique. I find attending other churches empty and lacking of any spirit.
But in saying that I have to express my support to those religious groups, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever; that practice what is right and just, and what Jesus preached according to the records we have.
Granted, that may be a damned small percentage of the religious followers, but I don't hate people of color because the prison population has a large percentage of people of color. That's just as bigoted as dobson and his bible-thumping goons and the white supremecist groups.
You have to be careful when you are grouping and condemning all. It just doesn't work...it's simple, but that's what makes the right wing so easy to swallow.
Ultra right wing by defintion does not mean 'all'-unless you identify yourself as being ultra right wing?
I attend church, and enjoy it- my problem is the ultra right wing fringes of Christianity or Islam, etc, that feel the need to gaybash and indoctrinate others in bigotry- I'm gay, I'm liberal and feel welcome at the UU- noone has threatened me or given me crap. And not just the UU, the local Catholic and Protastant churches,and Jewish temples have been very positive in community outreach
Seriously...cuz if not....I'd like a way out of Texas...;)
If we hang along long enough it'll be a suburb of Mexico.
Type that three times fast. ;)
Teabaggistan, to be correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLz7XQOIOQ&fe...
I'm reading they have an outbreak of SWINE FLU presently.
Nice threatening tone there- you sound like a very unhappy, angry person..
I can say the exact same thing about you too...I can condemn whomever I like....and you cannot do a damn thing about it!
I'm sure when you call gays like me a 'fagg*t', it gives you a happy feeling inside...
I am gay myself...so I doubt it...
You doubt your gay?
Hallelujah, he's cured!!!
ysbaddaden---you are stirring up trouble...where did I say I was "cured?" Why are you causing trouble?
You are a jerk!!!
I have never put anyone on iggy, but you might be the first.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Vp9fQ616k
YSB is just being YSB, he's a quirky guy,
who was mostly just finding your sentence constuction interesting - I've never seen him gay bash. Did you have a bad day?
I do not appreciate jerks like you who are now going to start attacking my sexual preference, either....it is none of your business anyway...I was responding to Tom who did not know I was also gay...
Most gay folk nowadays know it's not a "preference". I could be wrong, but I've a sneaking suspicion you're some possibly right-wing troll in disguise as what it believes to be an impression of out of control leftist. If not, I apologize, but that just means you are beating up on people that are on your side.
Funny thing, condemnation sounds so...so...
Religious.
I'd like to own a store called Condom Nations.
I love ya like the mother I had committed against her will.....but maybe you need to pull back a hair. That's a bit of an outrageous statement.
Stop your sanctimonious words already, you fool.
I can say outrageous things whenever I like....and you cannot do a damn thing to control it!
I'm not going to get pulled in here. I was trying to be nice and don't appreciate being called a fool. I just felt that you may be going a bit overboard, and I have not wished to control you. I just happen to see myself in the way you are acting and I didn't care for it. But feel free to say what you wish. We're still all on the same side here.
"
I do not need any of you in here...Got that too?"If you don't want feedback, don't post on a forum.
I guess religion doesn't have a monopoly on asshats.
Rights for me but none for thee?
That one is full of bigots and hateful people. Even my father stopped going after 60 years because he couldn't take it any more.
Hulk
Your description of St. Francis sounds like a nice place.
I hope the the Vatican doesn't find out what they're doing.
Plenty of people out there who would be happy to take the job and keep their personal views to themselves.
It's bad enough when pharmacists try to pull this kind of shit.
Just DON'T hire Repukes for the jobs that they refuse to do.
We should encourage ALL of the county recorders to refuse the licenses and to take up ADF's offer for free legal counsel. Maybe we can bankrupt these pricks after all.
Their beliefs are their beliefs. They are based on their religion. Being such, they cannot be use to dictate legal matters outside their church. Otherwise, they can justify anything, using their opinion of "God". Until our society gets that through their collective heads, these a-holes will never stop. You give them an inch and they'll want more. I've been abused by this thinking for as long as I can remember, and when I dared question it, well, it wasn't pretty.
the religious reichwingnuttia in this country
like dodson would force jesus to fuck everyone
over if it suited their agenda. to the conservatives
god is to be submissive to them...what a
lovingbunch of hypocrits.
to winnow religious nutbars out of such positions. Some good advice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQgXgS5G3c&fe...
who beat his dog with a belt and bragged about it? The same guy who is a Professor of Pediatrics and believes in spanking children to get them to obey authority?
http://cafephilos.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/ja...
He scares me.
If they genuinely believe the law is wrong, and are not actively causing harm to people, I have no objections to their offering legal counsel to someone for not complying with the law anymore than I have any compunctions about the ACLU deliberately provoking a test case that resulted in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
I think they're on the wrong side of this issue, and I suspect and hope they will be slapped down appropriately, but as a tactic it's perfectly legitimate.
Jonnan
I would think twice about hiring someone to do a job that requires thinking, if their degenerate "moral" ideal is to not think.
I'm inclined to say "religious people suck" and be done with it.
But I once belonged to a Unitarian-Universalist congregation, so I think twice and mostly shut my mouth.
The minister was an out lesbian. Gay people were welcomed.
I ended up being in the choir and running youth programs a few years.
The UUs are non-dogmatic and have no creed.
Although I tend to think that religion gets in the way, I realize that some religious people don't suck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rccp8KcpyI
have stock in YouTube or something? ;)
Cute comment you made :)
I think that's a question best directed to Dr. King.
Look, Dobson and his followers make me want to gouge my own eyes and ears out just to avoid their mind-numbing hypocrisy and stupidity, and, I have to say, I've been blessed with the gift of agnosticism (thanks to a good, old, conservative Lutheran education). But are you seriously suggesting that to be religious is to be law-abiding? Dude, I loved the arse-kicking Jesus gave the money changers in the temple. Can we please get a little of that sweetness right now with AIG, et. al.?
That said, I believe the proper course for any of these county officials who are sufficiently opposed to the fact of gay marriage is simply to resign. If you can't fulfill your duties, you are ethically obliged to quit. And if you can't look yourself in the mirror before you go to work in the morning, you have substantial problems in the here and now, much less with having to account to the deity of your choice on some day in the future.
that's a question best directed to Dr. King
I was thinking along the same lines, except that my answer to "How Christian is it to ask people to break the law?" was "The Berrigans did it all the time."
I would never deny anyone's right of conscience. At the same time, it is a simple fact that conscience may make some occupations impossible to perform. A pacifist can't be a soldier. A true Christian Scientist can't be a surgeon. In the same way, if you are a county clerk you don't get to pick and choose to who you will provide forms and licenses to which they are legally entitled.
As someone with a history of draft and tax resistance and civil disobedience, I have genuine respect for those who will go to the wall for what they believe. But what you need to know and more importantly to accept in going to that wall is that there can be a price to be paid, whether that be prison, fines, or, as in this case, the loss of your job. If you are not prepared to pay that price, you should not be doing the job that puts you in that position.
Already dun did.
This reminds me of the pharmacists that refuse to fill legal prescriptions for Plan B. Sadly they're getting away with it in some places (including my very liberal state WA.) The same thing could happen with this but the fact that couples cannot "go somewhere else," which was the argument the pharmacists used, will make it more difficult to get away with.
that someone will be stupid enough to set up their own Christian Taliban Pharmacy and see the record speed with which it goes out of business. Just think: no condoms, no birthcontrol, no liquor, no cigarettes, no soft-core porn mags, no lube, etc. Maybe just shampoo, toothpaste and stool softener.
and its prosecutable.
We now have a example for when one of these jackass Moral Objection defenders claim it will never be used other side of abortion and birth control. People said it was only a matter of time before some group trys to use such conscious laws to discriminate, and here we are.
Here's a video of my county clerk (in California) hiding behind the ADF because she stopped *all* civil wedding ceremonies in the county courthouse in order to avoid marrying GLBT couples: video.
Gimme that ol time religion...gimme that ol time religion...gimme that ol time religion...that's good enough for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o
That was so ecclesiastical!
I just got home about an hour ago.
Had trouble with my dial-up though.
I just got in the mail my cd copy of some old Green Hornet Radio episodes.
Was there something between him and Kato?
Afterall his great grand-uncle had a faithful Indian companion.
How absurd. This is the moral equivalency of providing a defence fund for racist who refuse to provide government services.
I just don't see the logic... or the humanity.
This is the same sort of tactic used to allow pharmacists not to fill prescriptions for RU-40 due to moral objections.
Congress passed a law allowing them to do so now, even when they're the only pharmacist in the area.
and I sure hope so. I was so disgusted when Bush decided to throw a bone to his misogynistic religious supporters at the end of his presidency...
I just thunk a thought.
The argument on gay marriage has thus far been the word marriage. Supporters have been trying to convince churches that they won't be forced to conduct gay marriages, if they're against them. Some redub it domestic partnerships, but even in the case of marriage, supporters aargue that gay couples could get civil marriages, not necessarily church marriages.
This is an attempt to even cut off the civil marriage.
The county clerk here in Kern County is an evan-geli-kill who put a stop to performing *all* civil marriages in the county courthouse in an effort to not have to marry "teh gayz." Her people claimed that what they were doing was a money saving effort, and blah, blah, but local reporters discovered that it either made no difference, or maybe even cost more, IIRC. And as I wrote earlier, she hid behind Dobson's group.
Then that suggests more of the same to come during this conservative created financial crisis.
I was already certain it would affect attempts at greening industry.
In fact, about a month ago I got my corroboration in the NYT when I read that Hybrid car sales are stagnant, and trucks and SUV's are zooming off the car lots again.
and use the economy to try and stop certain things, like gay marriage, and greening industry. Perhaps we might even see attacks at workplace equality for women too...
Pushbacks against workplace equality for women I'm sure are down the pike. Afterall, I know there was a recent robert's Supreme Court case saying a history of discrimination has to be proven, and limiting the statute of limitations (nevermind it's already against most workplace rules to compare salaries. By the time you discover a discrepancy it might be too late). I'll have to research the name of the case.
And expect challenges against the Family Leave Act, leaving jobs open for maternity/family leave, and leaving jobs open for employees fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan now possibliy Pakistan to return to.
I think it's Ledbetter v Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company but it was in 2007.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/...
And speaking of the Supreme Court, President Obama might face what FDR did with his activist conservative dominated court with four justices in particular that were called the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse who were: Justices James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler. They would strike down many features of his New Deal calling them unconstitutional.
Funny thing though as far as strict constructionism is concerned, conservatives will indubitably say there's nothing in the Constitution protecting gay marriage, but conversely (what they won't mention), there's no explicit Constitutional right to "traditional" marriage either.
Time to read some Harry Potter and get some shut-eye.
To complete my thought.
Conservatives have lost footing to this reasonable approach, so they're trying to reignite the issue by making it between religious rights and individual rights of the gays to marry. But they are also trying to position themselves with a sham concern for the religious individual (or one cooerced to toe their line) to do as the conservative churches wish, and not lose their job.
Remember when conservatives were ready to throw any soldier into jail, when they refused to go to Iraq, maybe for a second or third time?
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