Rural county and town clerks are refusing to issue marriage licenses or perform civil ceremonies for same-sex couples, despite the Supreme Court's ruling last week.
In some cases, they have the support of state legislators and officials, like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who says that "the government cannot force [judges] to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections."
These are the same people who run around, hands-a-flapping, about the coming regime of "Sharia law," in which people's religious objections will allow them to ignore the law and their duties under it.
Leaning on Paxton's guidance, Lang said Tuesday, "We find that although it fabricated a new constitutional right in 2015, the Supreme Court did not diminish, overrule, or call into question the First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion that formed the first freedom in the Bill of Rights in 1791."
The right to same-sex marriage, she concluded, must "peaceably coexist" with other rights.
Lang later issued another statement, which made clear that although she won't issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, her office will.
"The religious doctrines to which I adhere compel me to personally refrain from issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Nonetheless, in addition to the county clerk offices in the several surrounding counties, as soon as the appropriate forms have been printed and supplied to my office, the County Clerk's Office of Hood County will have staff available and ready to issue same-sex marriage licenses.
Despite same-sex marriage ruling, spasms of resistance persist [Eliott C. McLaughlin/CNN]
