LGBT rights groups challenge magistrate bill
Campaign for Southern Equality and others file suit, WNC couples named as plaintiffs in case
CHARLOTTE - LGBT rights groups filed a federal suit Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of a new law that allows magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages based on "sincerely held" religious beliefs.
The Asheville-based Campaign for Southern Equality joined with statewide advocacy group Equality North Carolina and Charlotte-based law firm Tin Fulton Walker & Owen to file the suit and host an accompanying public education campaign.
Six plaintiffs are named in the case, four are from Western North Carolina.
Ansley v. North Carolina disputes the legality of Senate Bill Two under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the 14th Amendment.
The advocacy groups behind the suit argue the bill allows magistrates who do not believe in marriage equality to renounce their judicial oath and place their personal beliefs above their sworn constitutional duty. They say its implementation has resulted in the unlawful spending of public money to accomplish an expressly religious goal.
"Senate Bill Two seeks to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling and uses taxpayer funds to promote a single, particular religious viewpoint," said Meghann Burke, an attorney with Brazil & Burke, PA in Asheville, who helped file the lawsuit. Burke is married to the executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality.
"When a magistrate is acting within his or her official capacity, he or she is the government," Burke added. "Government has no right to establish, promote, or respect a particular religious viewpoint."
On June 11, North Carolina passed legislation that exempts magistrates and some registers of deeds workers with “sincerely held religious objection” from carrying out marriage ceremonies. Republican Gov. Pat McCrory vetoed Senate Bill Two, but it was overridden by the General Assembly.
The North Carolina bill mirrors a slew of religious freedom laws introduced around the country in response to the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage.
Senate Bill Two strikes a balance between the rights of same-sex couples to marry and the rights of magistrates, said Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the North Carolina Values Coalition.
"No court in this country should desecrate the First Amendment by requiring an employee to violate his religious beliefs just to keep his job," she said. "While these activists may now have a right to homosexual marriage, they do not have a right to force dissenters to perform it."
Officials wanting to opt out of same-sex marriages must recuse themselves from all marriages for at least six months.
To ensure marriage is an available county service, Senate Bill Two requires willing magistrates from other counties to travel to do the work of officials refusing to perform marriage ceremonies in their home county.
North Carolina's magistrates are officers of District Court and marriage is one of their many duties. The entry level salary for magistrates is $35,275 a year.
In September, magistrates from Rutherford County were spending a minimum of 10 hours a week in McDowell County for marriage-related duties. When travelling away from their home county, state employees are eligible for the business standard mileage reimbursement rate set by the Internal Revenue Service at 57.5 cents per mile.
The court system has received recusal notices from nearly 5 percent, or 32, of the state’s 670 magistrates. County register of deeds offices also reported about a dozen recusals shortly after Senate Bill Two's enactment.
"Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land and people are trying to skirt it," said Cathy McGaughey, a plaintiff in the Ansley vs. North Carolina case who lives in McDowell County. "If a person has a job, took a job and is being paid to do a job, they they should do their job. If I refused to do my job, I would be fired."
"They certainly wouldn't pay someone else to do my job for me and keep paying me," she added. "This is a waste of taxpayer's money."
Senate Bill Two also orders the judicial system to pay retirement contributions to magistrates who quit or were fired in the wake of the debate over Amendment One and have now returned to work. The legislation, which was overturned in October 2014, defined marriage in North Carolina as between one man and one woman.
Swain County Magistrate Judge Gilbert Breedlove resigned in October several months before Senate Bill Two took effect. Breedlove had been a magistrate for nearly 24 years. The Bryson City minister was opposed to same-sex marriage and felt resignation was his only option.
State magistrate officials who left work between Oct. 6, 2014, and the effective date of Senate Bill Two can apply to fill any vacant position of magistrate, the new law states. Though they will not receive salary or other compensation for their time away, they will be "considered to have been serving as a magistrate during that period for purposes of determining continuous service, length of aggregate service, anniversary date, longevity pay rate, and the accrual of vacation and sick leave."
Retirement benefits will be "applied had there been no break in service."
"It's not just an unconstitutional law, it’s a bad law," said the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of Campaign for Southern Equality. "Religious freedom means in our private lives we have the freedom and autonomy to practice and hold religious beliefs, but what Senate Bill Two does is cross the line into how government works and how our public offices work.
"Public officers are required to treat everyone equally."
Other plaintiffs in the Ansley v. North Carolina case include Kelley Penn and Sonja Goodman, an engaged couple from Swain County; Diane Ansley, McGaughey's wife; and Carol Ann and Thomas Person, a married couple from Moore County.
The Persons were initially denied the ability to marry in 1976 after two magistrates in Forsyth County claimed their religious beliefs against interracial marriage would not permit it.
Ansley and McGaughey, of Old Fort, were plaintiffs in the 2014 case which led to a federal judge in Asheville striking down North Carolina's ban on gay marriage.
"We did this for future generations," McGaughey said on Tuesday. "It's the obvious follow up to the original lawsuit."
"We believe in marriage and if we can do this for other folks, specifically folks in our county, that's what we will do. This is not right."
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