Tag: gay marriage

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News News Blog News Feature

Marriage Refusal Bill Fails; Suit for Online-Ordained Ministers Set for August

Photo by Maico Pereira on Unsplash

A bill that would have allowed officials in Tennessee to refuse to conduct a marriage ceremony based on their “conscience or religious beliefs” did not become law this year, and a trial is set for this summer to decide the fate of marriages performed by ministers who were ordained online. 

Tennessee state Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) sponsored the legislation and called it “a freedom bill” to protect the rights of officiants at wedding ceremonies. During a debate on the House floor last month, Fritts admitted he was not aware of anyone in the state who had been forced to solemnize a wedding. He called that point “irrelevant” and said it was, instead, important to incorporate the right to refuse to perform wedding ceremonies into Tennessee state law. 

LGBTQ advocates worried that the bill would officially limit couples’ access to marriage in the state. The bill was written broadly and advocates were concerned that it would allow county clerks or or other government officials to deny marriages to LGBTQ+ couples. 

This idea gained national attention in 2015, when Kim Clark, a Kentucky county clerk, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, citing personal beliefs. Davis was, ultimately, protected from litigation in her official capacity but a jury is set to decide this summer what damages she may personally owe to a couple, according to WKYT. 

Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) said the legislation, and other bills of a similar nature, are based in hypotheses and take up pointless time and energy in the Tennessee General Assembly.    

“… This type of legislation is harmful not only in its practice, but in the messages that it is sending about who has rights in our cities, in our state, and in our country,” Pearson said. “By doing this, it is helping to fuel people who do not care for inclusion, who do not care for love, and people loving whoever it is that they choose to love — that God’s given them the ability to love. … Instead it is trying to support a vision, a perspective of people who would like to see other folks subjugated, dejected, and rejected.”

The bill passed a full House vote after speeding through the committee process in just over a month. However, it was postponed for consideration until next year in its first consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

The bill’s failure may mark a bright spot on the legislative session for LGBTQ+ advocates. But its power is dimmed amid several other bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community, including a bills to ban drag shows and to outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth. 

 ”The Tennessee House of Representatives continues to be one of the most dangerous legislative chambers in the country for LGBTQ+ people,” Tennessee Equality Project executive director Chris Sanders said in a statement. “They have ignored constituents in their offices, phone calls, and compelling committee testimony. It is time they became the People’s House again.”

Meanwhile, the Universal Life Church (ULC) said a lawsuit that would allow online-ordained ministers to perform marriages in the state is slated for a hearing in August. The original suit was filed in 2019, after Tennessee lawmakers passed a law banning such ministers from performing marriages in the state. 

”For the last four years, we’ve contended with delay after delay after delay as the state and local officials we sued have employed legal tactics to absolve themselves of responsibility and prolong our expensive battle,” ULC said in a March blog post.

While the Tennessee law was quickly blocked by a judge, ULC said it’s still not certain its ministers can legally perform weddings. Further, the status of marriages performed by ULC ministers would remain unclear if the group loses its lawsuit. 

”Reading all of this, you might be frightened,” ULC said in a blog post last month. “We won’t lie: so are we.”

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News News Blog News Feature

State Bill Threatens LGBTQ Marriage Here, Opponents Say

State Capitol (Credit: Tennessee State Government)

A bill that some say threatens LGBTQ marriage rights passed a Tennessee House committee Tuesday. 

The bill says that a person would not be required to solemnize (or officiate or conduct) a marriage if that person has a conscientious or religious objection to it. The bill is backed by Republican Rep. Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon).

Tennessee law does not now require anyone to conduct any marriage they don’t want to. But Fritts, the House bill sponsor, told the Children and Family Affairs Subcommittee Tuesday that a “big reason” he brought the bill was to help block elder abuse.

“When you look at some of the research that we have found on this, that … young folks are trying to marry older folks to get to their financial accounts,” Fritts said. “I think there are other things that we need to do.”

Rep. Jason Power (D-Nashville) disagreed, saying the bill does not get to any problem concerning elder abuse. He called it a “solution looking for a problem” and “government overreach.” 

“I think it’s actually just the opposite of overreach,” Fritts returned. “I think it’s a protection of the rights that we have to the rights of conscience that our Constitution guarantees.” 

While lawmakers wrangled over some of the bill’s details, one Tennessean said the bill has broader effects. Michael Rady, who described himself as a Nashville resident and voter, asked the committee if they wanted a headline to read, “Tennessee lawmakers make marriage white-only and straights-only in 2023.”

Rady explained the bill would apply not only to religious leaders but to county clerks who certify marriage licenses. He said it would be a “jumbo-sized green light for any county clerk to deny a marriage license to a couple based on their race, gender, or religion.” 

He said he and his partner are planning a Tennessee wedding this fall. The couple is gay and Rady said he is Jewish, while his partner is not. While their save-the-date cards have already been mailed, he said the bill would jeopardize his marriage and those of all LGBTQ couples here. 

”No spiritual leader is compelled under any law to officiate a wedding they disagree with,” Rady said. “As someone planning a gay, interfaith wedding here in Tennessee, I’m here to tell you that I can’t imagine anyone like me wanting to have their wedding officiated by someone who is against it.”

The conservative Tennessee Stands group is asking its followers to support the bill by asking their state members to vote for it. 

“Our religious beliefs are sacred, and the exercise of those beliefs is a right that has been given to us by God and is protected by our Constitution,” reads a form letter Tennessee Stands has provided for its followers. “Therefore, all those who perform marriage ceremonies in the state of Tennessee should not be forced by law to perform a ceremony that falls outside of their religious beliefs. They should have the ability to object to participating, without fear of reprisal.” 

The bill passed on a voice vote in the House panel Tuesday. 

However, Rady reminded committee members that some conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, voted to preserve LGBTQ marriage rights in the landmark Bostock v. Clayton County case. So, should the bill become law, it would likely face and uphill and costly legal fight, he said.

A 2019 state law banned weddings by those ordained online. Breaking the law came with felony charges that could result in up to six years in prison and a $3,000 fine. However, the Universal Life Church, an online ordination website, sued the state over the bill. Online-ordained officiants have been able to continue to conduct weddings in Tennessee as the suit continues through the legal process. 

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

2015: The Year That Was …

It was a heck of a year, 2015. In television, we saw the departure of NBC news anchor Brian Williams, whose fanciful anecdotes became the stuff of Internet memes. Then Jon Stewart left The Daily Show and David Letterman departed CBS after decades of stupid people tricks, leaving a void on late-night screens that their replacements will be hard-pressed to fill.

Early in the year, the long-awaited 50 Shades of Grey hit movie theaters and proved that kinky sex could be boring if you cast the right actors for the job. And “Uptown Funk” became the first Memphis-produced No. 1 song since “Disco Duck,” back in the 1970s. Hopefully, some enterprising Memphis musician will write “Uptown Duck” and keep the magic alive in 2016.

This was the year that Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner and posed for the cover of Vanity Fair, putting the T of LGBT into more conversations than ever before. Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court struck a blow for L, G, and B by ruling that gay marriage was legal in all 50 states — except for that one county in Kentucky where Kim Davis was the clerk. By refusing to issue gay marriage licenses, Davis got her 15 minutes of fame, and later, some well-deserved jail-time.

On the pervert front, Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, Josh Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting, and Bill “Dr. Huxtable” Cosby had their sexual deviances exposed and suffered varying consequences. Hopefully, we will not hear their names again, except in a court dossier.

The New England Patriots and Tom Brady survived “Deflategate” and won another Super Bowl; Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors jump-shot their way to the top of the NBA; and the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. Also, some team won the National Hockey League championship, but I’m too lazy to look it up, and you don’t care because you live in Memphis.

Unsurprisingly, we in the United States endured another year of mass shootings and mass death in churches, schools, malls, military bases, Planned Parenthood offices — and a California facility for the mentally disabled. The latter incident was perpetrated by Islamist terrorists and therefore became the incident that was the sole focus of right-wing media and the GOP candidates. They, of course, ignored the one common denominator of all the shootings, no matter the politics, religion, or mental state of the perpetrator: easy access to high-powered weapons. The NRA-owned GOP Congress then decided that even people on the terror no-fly list should continue to have access to guns. Because freedom.

Donald Trump gamed the presidential nomination process by dominating media coverage of the GOP race with his outrageous comments, each of which only seemed to increase his strength in the polls. As 2016 approaches, the GOP establishment is in near-panic mode, and will probably be forced to support Marco Rubio, the least wacky of the remaining viable candidates, and the only one they see having a chance to beat the Democratic nominee.

In Tennessee, the boneheads in Nashville played their usual tune, turning down federal money to expand Medicaid, and focusing on loosening gun laws, dumbing down our education system, fighting gay marriage, and taking on the horrific encroachment of Sharia law.

In Memphis, we elected a new mayor and got Bass Pro to fill the Pyramid with outdoorsy stuff. We learned to love Tiger football, and are struggling to learn how to live with mediocre basketball.

For more on the year just past — and predictions for the year ahead — in Memphis, check out the pages of this, our special year-end double issue.

The new year is upon us, bright and shiny and filled with hope. We at the Flyer are glad you’re with us after 26 years in Memphis, and we’re looking forward to another run around the calendar. Let’s get after it.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Fixing the Lines

This week marks the 271st birthday of the politician who first approved of “gerrymandering.” As governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry (also the nation’s fifth vice president) agreed to the idea of drawing congressional districts in odd shapes to ensure that the political party in power won the majority of the state’s seats in the House. His enduring legacy is the partisan split in Congress that dismisses compromise and disdains bipartisan solutions to the nation’s biggest problems.

But last month, the Supreme Court took a first step toward burying the corruption of gerrymandering. In a 5-4 decision, the justices approved of voters deciding by referendum to create independent, nonpartisan commissions to draw a state’s congressional map. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court followed up by ruling that parts of a current redistricting plan violate the state constitution by being crassly political.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s majority opinion said voters have the right to go around politically skewed state legislatures and “address the problem of partisan gerrymandering — the drawing of legislative district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power.”

“Entrench” is the right word. One popular joke around Washington is that redistricting by state legislatures allows members of Congress to pick their voters instead of voters picking their members of Congress.

When it comes to 2016 House races, more than 400 of the 435 seats in the House are rated as “safe” for incumbent Republicans and Democrats because of gerrymandering. That leaves only about seven percent of the seats in Congress open to a meaningful contest.

Gerrymandering has distorted congressional politics by eliminating the need for either party to appeal to the political middle. Instead, the members of Congress live in fear of a challenge from the far right (in the case of Republicans) or the far left (in the case of Democrats).

Gerrymandering is the mother of the “Tea Party Caucus” that undermines the Speaker, John Boehner (R-Ohio), by denigrating him as insufficiently conservative when he tries to make budget deals with Democrats.

Gerrymandering is the reason President Obama tells supporters the best thing they can do to help him is to move to a red state and help break the GOP hold on Congress.

In the 2014 cycle, an off-year election, Republicans had the edge in voter enthusiasm as well as control of more state legislatures. As a result of the power of gerrymandering, the GOP won 57 percent of all House seats even though they had just 52 percent of the votes.

Even in election years when majority control of the House changes from one party to the other, the reelection rate tied to gerrymandered districts is staggeringly high. In 2006, when Democrats won the House, 94 percent of incumbents were reelected. In 2010, when Republicans rode a Tea Party wave back to the majority, 85 percent of representatives retained their seat. This is the politics of back-room congressional mapping.

This era of unprecedented polarization and dysfunction borne of gerrymandering has current congressional approval ratings down to 15.8 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Obviously, Republicans as well as Democrats disapprove of what is going on in this broken Congress.

Senator John McCain has often said that the only people approving of Congress these days are “paid staffers and blood relatives.”

The adoption of independent state commissions to draw congressional maps is by far the most important step available to voters longing for a Congress that works. Seven states already have nonpartisan commissions in place: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Jersey, and Washington state. With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, the door is open to more. It is not as sexy as the court’s recent rulings on gay marriage and Obamacare, but this high court ruling also has historic potential. It opens the door for voters in more states to get referendums on the ballot calling for nonpartisan panels to set the lines for congressional districts — and so revive a functional Congress.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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News The Fly-By

Q&A with First Same-Sex Couple to Get Marriage License in Shelby County

Chris and Bradley Brower made local history on Friday by becoming the first same-sex couple in Shelby County to receive a marriage license.

Chris, a nurse, and Bradley, a teacher, have been together for two years, and they had held a commitment ceremony at Holy Trinity Community Church just two weeks prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision making same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. On Friday, they made their marriage official with a visit to the Shelby County Clerk’s Office.

The news of the high court’s 5-4 ruling came down Friday morning, just after 9 a.m. The ruling overturned a November Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold gay marriage bans in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, and Michigan. That court was the first federal appeals court to rule in favor of a marriage ban.

The split in decisions by appeals courts led the Supreme Court to take on the marriage issue in January, and their ruling finally came down last week.

The Flyer caught up with the Browers on Sunday afternoon at Tobey Park, where they’d just wrapped up their weekly softball game for the Bluff City Sports Association. — Bianca Phillips

Chris and Bradley Brower

Flyer: So you two had a formal wedding ceremony earlier this month?

Bradley: Our commitment ceremony was June 13th. We had a rustic theme. We had Ole Miss stuff [for decoration] at the reception, and our wedding [décor] was burlap.

Chris: We wrote our vows. I had eight groomsmen. He had eight bridesmaids.

Did you plan a June wedding because you were hoping for a favorable Supreme Court decision?

Chris: We’d heard [the decision would come down] sometime in June, so we thought, well, maybe it’ll come by June 13th. It didn’t happen, but we still had the wedding and went on a honeymoon. We went on a cruise, and we were hoping they’d have a decision by the time we got back.

How did you learn of Friday’s decision?

Chris: One of [Bradley’s] friends called and woke him up out of bed. I was out seeing patients. He called me, and he said, “It passed! We can get our license now.” So I went home.

I assumed you two were waiting outside the clerk’s office for the decision since you were the first couple to get your license.

Chris: We didn’t even try to be the first ones. I had a 9-o’clock patient, and I saw that patient. And then I was driving home when he called and said [the ruling had come down], so we went to the courthouse. They told us it’d be 2-o’clock before a decision would be made [on how the clerk’s office would be handling it], so they weren’t issuing licenses. So we ended up leaving.

And then somebody from Channel 24 [who was at the clerk’s office] called us and said they’d started issuing licenses. So we came back, and we were still number one in line at about 10:30. There were two couples coming in after us.

Bradley: If it wasn’t for Channel 24, we would have waited until Monday.

Were the clerks supportive?

Chris: They were awesome, very friendly. They made it easy for us.

Bradley: They were very respectful and willing to help.

Did they have gender-neutral forms?

Bradley: It was the same forms they use for straight couples. They said “groom” and “bride.”

Chris: He had to sign where it said “bride.” I figure they’ll correct that.

What marriage benefits are you most excited about?

Bradley: Taxes.

Chris: I’m just glad it’s legal now. We should have the same rights as any other couple. Being married should be our right.

How surprised were you by the ruling?

Chris: I did not expect this in my lifetime.

Bradley: I knew it would happen. Love is infallible. But we never worried about the marriage part, because [whether or not we could get legally married] it wouldn’t change anything between us.

Chris: But we are all one and equal now.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (July 2, 2015) …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Toby Sells’ cover story, “Engaging the Big Muddy” …

Toby Sells and Brandon Dill captured the mystery, the magic, and the majesty of the big river, not to mention the good-time fun. And Joe Royer is the Mississippi’s greatest Memphis protagonist!  

The only thing not covered were details about safety, e.g., when to go and when not to go — and the myriad considerations paddlers need to make when approaching such a powerful force of nature. Fortunately, there is an excellent guide available on the internet: The River Gator’s Paddler’s Guide.  

Anyone considering safe paddling in the Memphis area (and beyond), please visit the River Gator. Some of the Memphis routes described in the River Gator were pioneered by Joe Royer and his wife Carol Lee. Many Memphians were consulted as experts for the River Gator (including the editor of the Flyer!).

There are dozens of pages covering the many choices for paddlers in between Shelby Forest State Park and Memphis, including the main channel, and enticing alternate back-channel routes such as those behind Brandywine, Hickman, Loosahatchie, and Redman. There is a very detailed safety section describing the specific skills paddlers should know before attempting the challenges of the biggest river in North America.

John Ruskey

About Bianca Phillips’ post, “State Bill Would Allow Religious Clergy to Deny Same-Sex Marriage” …

I’m trying to remember anywhere in all of the arguments over this where gay people said they wanted to force ministers and other clergy members to marry them. Everything I’ve seen has been they wanted the government to allow them to marry and for the government to recognize it. That is all.

Charlie Eppes

I am pretty sure that religious clergy already have the freedom to refuse to marry two individuals regardless of the reason. The only purpose of this proposal is to score political points.

Barf

Today’s ruling clearly stated that no minister was going to be forced to marry a same-sex couple if they did not choose to do so. Again, this is a way of wasting Tennesseans’ taxpayer money on frivolous bills rather than working to decrease our uninsured or create jobs, neither of which the Republican majority has shown any interest in.

Lane Scoggins

This is just the first step toward man-turtle unions and the death of Christianity. I firmly believe that although Christianity survived the Roman empire, it is helpless in the face of gay marriage.

Jeff

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter From the Editor, “Black is the New White” …

VanWyngarden conveniently failed or refused to admit the lost war on poverty has much to do with the policies of the Democratic Party. Poverty, strife, and divisiveness will continue to swell until politicos stop rewarding bad behavior.

By his own admission, President Johnson’s “Great Society” entitlement programs were created to cement constituents to the Democratic Party. This nefarious scheme damaged the African-American communities most. Instead of the government concentrating on how to get citizens out of ghettos, the entitlement programs too often kept them there.

Victimization has become the key to successful Democratic election results. President Obama’s policies and that of most democratic strongholds in American cities have resulted in the greatest degree of black poverty and black-on-black crime in recent history.

There are no easy answers, but a strong economy fueled by less taxation and a healthier business climate will go far toward creating opportunity for all.

William Pollack

Many whites exist in a poverty of compassion that is compounded by the illusions created by what Douglas Adams called the “Somebody Else’s Problem” effect (SEP). SEP is a psychological effect where people choose to dissociate themselves from an issue that may be in critical need of recognition. Such issues may be of large concern to the population as a whole but can easily be a choice of ignorance by an individual.

Scott Banbury

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Memphis Gaydar News

Couples Tie the Knot at Tennessee Equality Project Marriage Celebration

“It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Mrs. and Mrs. Wallheimer,” said attorney (and former Shelby County Commissioner) Steve Mulroy, as a couple hundred people gathered on the lawn of the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) Friday afternoon cheered and clapped. Mulroy was referring to Jennifer and Alisha Wallheimer (formerly Jennifer Ballheimer and Alisha Wall), who married today on the front porch of the MGLCC.

Steve Mulroy performs a marriage for Jennifer and Alisha Wallheimer.

Mulroy was one of several volunteers with marriage-ordaining powers at the MGLCC’s celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. He and others married two other couples on-site in front of the gathered crowd. Before the ceremony, ministers roamed the crowd looking for anyone ready to marry.

“We actually had more ministers come out to perform weddings than we had people looking to get married,” said Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) Shelby County Committee Chair Justin Smith.

Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton spoke at the event. He told a story about having to go to a segregated medical clinic when he was a kid followed by the words “An injustice to anyone is an injustice to all.”

“I was too young to know the Civil Rights Movement, but I am honored to be here today as we stand for justice for every human being in this country,” Milton said.

While the event was celebratory, TEP President and Chair Ginger Leonard cautioned that, once the celebrations were over, the community still had lots of work ahead.

“Just because we can get married doesn’t mean we are no longer going to be discriminated against in housing, jobs, getting loans from banks, or in other areas,” Leonard said.

She said TEP will begin to shift its focus on non-discrimination ordinances with specific language addressing sexual orientation and gender identity, anti-bullying legislation, housing for LGBT homeless youth, and LGBT senior care.

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Categories
Memphis Gaydar News

Tennessee Attorney General Statement on Supreme Court Ruling

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III is not in favor of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in favor of legal same-sex marriage across the country.

Slatery issued the following statement today: “Today’s United States Supreme Court decision not only changes the definition of marriage, but takes from the states and their citizens the longstanding authority to vote and decide what marriage means. To the Tennessee citizen who asks ‘Don’t we get a chance to vote on this in some way?’ the answer from the Supreme Court is a resounding, ‘No, you do not.’ For the Court to tell all Tennesseans that they have no voice, no right to vote, on these issues is disappointing. The Court, nevertheless, has spoken and we respect its decision. Our office is prepared to work with the Governor and the General Assembly, as needed, to take the necessary steps to implement the decision.”

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Memphis Gaydar News

Shelby County Clerk’s Office Is Issuing Marriage Licenses for Same-Sex Couples

Bradley and Chris Brower

The Shelby County Clerk’s Office began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples right after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in favor of legal gay marriage in all 50 states.

Memphians Bradley and Chris Brower, who held a wedding ceremony in Memphis on June 13th,  were issued the first marriage license in Shelby County at around 11:30 a.m. The couple will be granting an interview to the Flyer later this afternoon.

Categories
Memphis Gaydar News

State Bill Would Allow Religious Clergy To Deny Same-Sex Marriages

Bryan Terry

The anti-gay bills are already coming in Tennessee, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all 50 states must allow same-sex marriage.

Tennessee State Representative Bryan Terry (R-Murfreesboro) has said that he’s drafting the “Tennessee Pastor Protection Act,” which would allow religious clergy to deny performing same-sex marriage and provide legal protection from being  “forced to perform same sex marriages on church property,” according to a press release issued this morning from State Representative Andy Holt’s (R-Dresden) office. Holt has said he’d be the co-sponsor of this bill.

“It comes as no surprise that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage. I have had multiple constituents concerned with how the ruling may impact their church and their religious beliefs. If the issue is truly about equality of civil liberties and benefits, then this ruling should have minimal legal impact on churches,” said Terry. “However, if the issue and the cause is about redefining marriage to require others to change their deeply held religious beliefs, then the concerns of many will be valid.”

In the release, Holt said that he would not recognize the court’s ruling as valid. According to Holt, “God is the ultimate Supreme Court and he has spoken. Marriage is between one man, and one woman.”