Marriage licenses would become a thing of the past in Oklahoma under a bill filed by state Rep. Todd Russ. The Cordell Republican says he wants to protect court clerks from having to issue licenses to same-sex couples. He doesn’t want these workers put in the position of having to condone or facilitate same-sex marriage.
Under his plan, a religious official would sign a couple’s marriage certificate, which would then be filed with the clerk. Marriages would no longer be performed by judges. If a couple did not have a religious official to preside over their wedding, they could file an affidavit of common law marriage.
“Marriages are not supposed to be a government thing anyway,” he said Wednesday.
Russ, a credentialed Assemblies of God minister, is upset with rulings that have supported same-sex marriage.
“There’s a lot of constituents and people across the state who are not through pushing back on the federal government for the slam down they’ve given us with Supreme Court rulings,” he said.
Same-sex marriage became legal in Oklahoma in October. That’s when the high court declined to review a federal court decision striking down a voter-approved ban on the practice.
It is now legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to determine whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
In 2004, Oklahoma voters approved, 1,075,216 to 347,303, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
“Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, and yet the Supreme Court stuck it down our throats,” Russ said.
He called his House Bill 1125 an example of “conscience legislation,” meant to allow people to exercise their religious values in good conscience. He compared it to Hobby Lobby’s case against the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
Rep. David Brumbaugh, R-Broken Arrow, has also filed legislation concerning same-sex marriage. His bill seeks to prevent religious officials from having to “solemnize or recognize any marriage that violates the official’s conscience or religious beliefs.”
He said pastors came to him concerned that if they didn’t officiate same-sex marriages, their churches could lose tax-exempt status. Toby Jenkins, executive director of Oklahomans for Equality, said that between Oct. 6 and mid-December, his group has documented 3,165 same-sex marriages in 23 counties.
He expressed disappointment with the two bills involving same-sex marriage.
“I was so hoping that our legislators would attend to the duties of our state and big issues like education, health care, dealing with crime and crumbling infrastructure,” he said. “I hoped they would make that their focus, but once again it sounds like Oklahoma legislators have decided to pick on a portion of our population.
“For 23 years, at least one anti-gay bill has been introduced every session. I was so hoping 2015 would be different.”