Another Clerk is refusing to marry gay couples in the US

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A Texas County Clerk has followed in the footsteps of Kim Davis, and is still refusing to issue marriage licences to same-sex couples.

Speaking to the Christian Reporter News, Irion County Clerk Molly Criner compared her objection to same-sex marriage to clerks in Nazi Germany, who were instructed to collect information about Jews.

Speaking on Wednesday, Criner said no same-sex couple in her county of 1,500, had applied for a marriage licence.

criner

Previously, Criner said she had prayed on the issue, and that she became ill and did not sleep for four days.

Initially she considered resigning, but that she believes that the Supreme Court acted unlawfully in its opinion in Obergefell.

“One of the first things said was that I don’t have to do it, but my deputies can, and I can fulfill my Christian conscience that way, but for me that wasn’t an option when I prayed about it,” Criner said. “I would be delegating my authority — that’s just like me doing it.”

On Wednesday, Criner said she had turned away a pair of reporters who posed as a same-sex couple.

“Am I obligated by law to issue a marriage license? I am. But I’m also obligated by law to issue a marriage license only between a man and a woman,” Criner continued.

“This is going to be something that violates my oath.”

Asked what she would do if a same-sex couple requested a marriage licence at her office, she said: “I’ll have to evaluate that the day it happens.”

Warned of other lawsuits against county clerks who have refused to issue marriage licences to gay couples, she said she was happy to become a martyr.

She said clerks are “the last gatekeeper”.

“I mean no disrespect to the same-sex couples who wish the benefits of marriage for their relations — no animosity toward them. I just have to look at what God said, and I have to look at the way our Constitution was based on what God said,” Criner told The Christian Reporter News. “I hope everybody really likes me when it’s over, and I hope I still have a home, and I hope I’m not in jail, but I really can’t think about any of that. I just leave it in the hands of God.”

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