A state actor does not have to defer to a religious belief for a benefit it bestows (granting a marriage license). The actor is, however, required under Hobby Lobby to not coerce a private, unelected, citizen to grant a benefit contrary to its religious belief.
The issues are worlds apart. Hobby Lobby never asked the govt. to identify the drugs as abortcifatents; only to get hobby lobby out of the picture. On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Len <campquest...@comcast.net> wrote: > These reports put The Onion to shame. > > > > ------------------------------ > *From: *"Marty Lederman" <lederman.ma...@gmail.com> > *To: *"Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" < > religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> > *Sent: *Monday, September 21, 2015 3:19:16 PM > *Subject: *Civil determination of a religious question in Rowan County? > > > A report to the court of another of the Rowan County Deputy Clerks today > includes the following: > > "Mrs. Plank reports that, to the best of her knowledge, all requests for > marriage licenses requested by legally qualified couples have been issued. > The only denial of a marriage license application that has occurred within > the last two weeks was to a gentleman who stated that he wanted a license > that would permit him to marry 'Jesus'. *When it was explained to the > individual that both parties had to be present, he stated, 'Jesus is always > present'.* After being denied, the gentleman returned later and > presented a type of Power of Attorney document issued by his church > granting him authority to sign 'Jesus'’ name. *Since both parties were > not present* these requests were denied." > > Impermissible civil assessment of a fundamentally religious question? > > (P.S. The passage from the filing today, quoted above, is 100% true. My > "legal" question, however, is of course facetious -- although given the > Court's recent movement toward almost absolute deference to private > religious assessments (cf. *Hobby Lobby*), it's not obvious on first > glance why the Clerk's Office was permitted to act on the basis that "Jesus > was not present.") > > _______________________________________________ > To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see > http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw > > Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as > private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are > posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or > wrongly) forward the messages to others. > > > _______________________________________________ > To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see > http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw > > Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as > private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are > posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or > wrongly) forward the messages to others. > -- Michael Worley J.D., Brigham Young University
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
