When your conscience is your guide

The Texas attorney general has told court clerks they don’t have to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that clerks don’t have to help gay couples get married if they can’t do so in good conscience.

I took at look at the Texas marriage license. It’s really simple: Name, birthplace, date of birth, signature.

The idea is to make sure that you’re at least eighteen and are not marrying a close relative. And also, you are there of your own free will.

Nowhere does it ask the clerk to approve of the marriage, just to witness the signature and collect the $81. So it’s not a blessing; it’s recordkeeping.

Of course, there may be people who have a religious objection to recordkeeping. But if that’s the case, I don’t get why you’d apply for a job with the government, since that’s pretty much what they do.

Now on the other hand, after the Pope’s latest pronouncements on guns, I can see where a government official who’s a devout Catholic, for example, might have a religious objection to granting concealed carry permits, for fear of how the weapon might be used.

I could also see where a devout atheist working for the IRS might feel compelled to deny tax exemptions to religious organizations. So there certainly can be sincere religious objections.

But, if that’s going to be a general rule going forward, then in fairness, we ought to change a certain founding document to read: “all men are created equal … except when conscience tells us otherwise.”