Defiant Anti-Gay Marriage Clerk Jailed Herself
At a rally last week, the two went public, saying Davis' office issued the license to them without asking to see Camryn's birth certificate, which still identifies him as female. "Technically," said Camryn, "they granted a same-sex couple a marriage license before it was even legal." Which only shows how gender politics can put some people, like Davis, ahead of their times before they realize it.
Maybe putting the brakes on social and judicial change is what a Tennessee judge had in mind when he decided, instead of getting in the way of same-sex marriage, to use the Supreme Court's decision to get in the way of a husband and wife who are seeking divorce.
Hamilton County Chancellor Jeffrey Atherton denied the divorce petition filed by Thomas Bumgardner, 65, and his wife, Pamela, 61, of Signal Mountain arguing that state courts are impaired from addressing marriage and divorce litigation altogether until the high court clarifies "when a marriage is no longer a marriage."
The Supreme Court, he insisted, has judged Tennesseans "to be incompetent to define and address such keystone/central institutions such as marriage, and, thereby, at minimum, contested divorces," Atherton wrote.
Is the judge, who also is elected, grandstanding? Sometimes politics does more to pull people apart than bring them together.
Yet, compared to the political blowback we've seen after other earthshaking decision in the past, such as civil rights and abortion rights, we should be thankful the backlash against gay marriage hasn't been worse. Let's hope it stays that way.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
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