Bob Bradley
WJBC Forum
In a short period of time my daughter will be getting married. She will marry her soul mate. They share a love that will sustain them through any tough times that may lie ahead.
The wedding ceremony will be one of joy and celebration. Friends and family from near and far will join in the happy festivities. They will eat, drink, laugh, dance, and be merry. As a father I could not be more proud and happier.
So should my and others’ delight in the ceremony be tempered if the gender of the bride and groom were the same? Should my pride be diminished if my daughter had chosen as the love of her life a same-sex partner? Should my happiness and love for my daughter be lessened if the ceremony was a same-sex marriage? Clearly not.
As for the Kentucky county clerk, the contempt finding against her is not depriving her of religious liberty and her actions are not comparable to those of Martin Luther King. Consider if she was a Quaker and refused to issue a license to carry a firearm based on her strong belief in non-violence. Would the outrage by certain segments of the community and particular presidential candidates be the same?
In fact, her actions are similar to those of local authorities who claimed it was against God’s will to allow biracial couples to marry in the 1960s despite a Supreme Court ruling saying they could. And are comparable to the refusal of certain Southern school authorities to integrate public schools in the 1950s after the issuance of the famous Brown decision.
The clerk used her official position to force citizens to abide by her religious views. This runs counter to the principle of the separation of church and state embodied in our Constitution. That principle was designed to prevent the government from making people conform to a specific religion.
And by not carrying out a Supreme Court decision granting a right to a minority group, the clerk is furthering the oppression of that group. This is the opposite of King’s actions, which tried to eliminate laws that were oppressive of minorities.
I hope my daughter’s wedding goes well and that she continues to live in a country where a specific religion does not dictate government actions.
Bob Bradley is a professor emeritus from Illinois State University where he primarily taught law-related courses in the political science department for 30 years. He did a weekly-segment for WJBC on politics and law for more than a decade. He also co-hosted a live- radio show from the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 2008, and reported live from the 2012 Republican convention. Currently, he serves on several community boards, does volunteer work, enjoys golf and fishing, and likes landscaping and bird-watching. He is married to the love of his life, Reenie, and has one daughter, Erin.