Tennessee May Allow Clerks to Refuse Marriage Licenses to Same-Sex Couples
The state’s House of Representatives Monday approved House Bill 878, which allows anyone to refuse to solemnize a marriage if they have religious or conscience-based objections. The Senate is considering a similar bill. If it becomes law, it could be used against same-sex, interracial, and interfaith couples as well as couples that include a transgender person.
Tennessee legislation would empower government employees, such as those who issue marriage licenses in courthouses, to discriminate against couples who offend their religious views, according to its critics and local media.
The sponsor of the companion Senate bill is Republican Sen. Mark Pody, who has previously introduced legislation aimed at undoing or at least undermining marriage equality. Pody once said God had called him to stop same-sex marriages. A Senate committee is scheduled to discuss his bill next Monday.
https://www.advocate.com/marriage-equali...e-licenses
The state’s House of Representatives Monday approved House Bill 878, which allows anyone to refuse to solemnize a marriage if they have religious or conscience-based objections. The Senate is considering a similar bill. If it becomes law, it could be used against same-sex, interracial, and interfaith couples as well as couples that include a transgender person.
Tennessee legislation would empower government employees, such as those who issue marriage licenses in courthouses, to discriminate against couples who offend their religious views, according to its critics and local media.
The sponsor of the companion Senate bill is Republican Sen. Mark Pody, who has previously introduced legislation aimed at undoing or at least undermining marriage equality. Pody once said God had called him to stop same-sex marriages. A Senate committee is scheduled to discuss his bill next Monday.
https://www.advocate.com/marriage-equali...e-licenses
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
