Summary
Syracuse City Court Judge Felicia Pitts Davis refused to officiate a same-sex wedding, citing religious beliefs.
Another judge, Mary Anne Doherty, performed the ceremony.
Pitts Davis’ actions, considered discriminatory under New York judicial ethics and the Marriage Equality Act, are under review by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct
Judges are allowed to perform weddings. They aren’t required to. It’s not their job. You need to pay one, unless they’re willing to do it for free. But that’s up to them.
That is not true. It is literally their job. Where are you getting this idea that judges aren’t required to officiate weddings in New York? The article even says she’s violating discrimination laws.
I didn’t realize that was New York law.
I guess I disagree with it and suggest it’s a bad law.
She could choose not to perform any weddings I guess.
Your disagreement is noted.
The rest of us think that judges should not be able to say no to a law just because they’re bigots.
And I have to wonder if you would be saying the same thing if the judge refused to marry an interracial heterosexual couple.
Thank you for registering my complaint.
I don’t think a judge should be able to say no to a law for any reason.
And I would absolutely say the same. Even for a hetrosexual homoracial couple. (Is homoracial a word?) I’d say the same if the judge didn’t like that the couple wore sneakers into the court. It doesn’t matter the reason. Nobody should be required to create any kind of art, they disagree with.
Which is why the Judge should stop performing weddings at all. That may be her only legal option.
Yeah, well maybe she should have thought about that when she married the heterosexual couple first and then refused to do it for the queer couple, showing it was basic discrimination.
This isn’t rocket science.
Jesus Christ, performing a legal ceremony isn’t “art”, it’s the legal duty of the public servants that swore to do the job. It sounds to me like you’re saying that public servants should be allowed to refuse to perform a courthouse marriage ceremony if they disagree with interracial marriages. If that is indeed what you are saying, then you are endorsing racial discrimination against citizens by the government. I can only assume you are of a demographic that would be unlikely to be discriminated against since you seem to be blasé about discrimination against others.
Tl;Dr: first you outed yourself as a homophobe, and now a racist too.
Performing a ceremony is absolutely a creative work. One that shouldn’t be required for a state to accept a marriage to begin with. But that’s a separate issue.
If my friends thought I was a racist homophobe I doubt they would’ve had me officiate their wedding. That would’ve been weird.
Just wanted to let you know that your argument is about as pedantic and nebulous as it gets. Surgeons perform surgery. As in, a surgeons job is to operate on a patient. Is that art? Come on now. The judge is not putting on a fucking act, she is doing a job. Her religion should play no part in her role as a public servant. She can go eat a bag of dicks.
It certainly is art. Surgeons can choose not to perform any surgery they don’t want to.
It sure is. Everything is art, all of the time. Watching TV is art. Eating a sandwich is art. Taking an extra 3 minutes on a bathroom break at work, is art. You’re defending a bigot, which is also art.
By the sound of it, she was the on-duty judge at city hall. It was a public service because it’s the most basic kind of legal marriage, a courthouse marriage. There is barely any ceremony or performance, and lots of people do it prior to the real ceremony because it is considered a formality.
Why shouldn’t a public servant who is assigned that duty be required to follow through? I understand not wanting to do it if it’s a whole ordeal, but if this is the bare minimum required to formalize a marriage, should that not always be available to all people regardless of their race, sex, etc?
It should be available to everyone. It shouldn’t even be a ceremony. Just file the paperwork. It’s only a contract after all.
If it was her assignment that day, and part of her job, signing the paperwork is all that she should be expected or required to do. Performing a ceremony would be too much to require I think.
For fuck’s sake… performing the ceremony is literally her job.
The tiniest bit of searching would have told you this before you started acting like a legal authority.
https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/4210/index
So it seems the judge doesn’t actually need to do anything more than be a witness. Then she could have done simply that, without saying anything. I wonder if she even new that.
But that link says nothing about the required duties of judges. They are nearly in the list of approved people, able to perform marriages. Also strange it comes from the department of health.
SHE’S A FUCKING JUDGE.
That doesn’t mean she knows everything about the law. Any judge would be able to admit that. That’s why they have specialities like family court, or criminal court, copyrights, etc.
The ceremony aspect of marriage is not just a ceremony, it’s a requirement. Asking the basic questions is part of the court procedure, it’s what makes an officiant different than a notary.
She refused to sign the paper, essentially.
It’s only a requirement as a vestigial remainder from religion, since all they can do are ceremonies. Legally it realy is nothing more than a contract, and could be treated as such.
Ok, cool. Law should be updated. Noted.
In the meantime, here in reality, I know this because I got married at city hall as a formality and my wife and I tried to just have it signed, since our real ceremony was months later. We were refused, because according to the clerk, we needed to follow a full procedure.
Stop arguing in bad faith, you’re just plain wrong here. Until laws and procedures actually change, the fact is that those are the minimum requirements and she refused to do them.
It might be in ignorance. But it’s certainly not in bad faith. I do actually believe everything I’ve said. Though some of that has turned out to be wrong.