{"id":9953,"date":"2015-06-28T23:23:32","date_gmt":"2015-06-28T23:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9953"},"modified":"2015-06-28T23:23:32","modified_gmt":"2015-06-28T23:23:32","slug":"its-official-texas-ag-says-clerks-can-flout-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9953","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s official: Texas AG says clerks can flout the law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has just told county clerks they don&#8217;t have to uphold the sacred oath to which they swore when they took office.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know where to begin.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/06\/28\/paxton-county-clerks-can-deny-same-sex-marriage-li\/<\/p>\n<p>Paxton issued a statement today that said county clerks do not have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they have religious objections. He has challenged the legal opinion of a majority of the nine men and women who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 this past week that gay marriage is now legal in the United States of America.<\/p>\n<p>Texas county clerks, according to Paxton, are now free to flout federal law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our religious liberties find protection in state and federal constitutions and statutes,&#8221; Paxton said in a statement. &#8220;While they are indisputably our first freedom, we should not let them be our last.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yes, they do &#8220;find protection&#8221; in the law. But there&#8217;s another factor that Paxton and others who oppose the court ruling are giving short shrift. It is that\u00a0county clerks &#8212; as well as state attorneys general, I should add &#8212; take an oath to follow federal and state law. They swear to God that they&#8217;ll do that.<\/p>\n<p>Is that oath now rendered moot? Why bother, then, to swear to uphold the Constitution?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has just told county clerks they don&#8217;t have to uphold the sacred oath to which they swore when they took office. I don&#8217;t know where to begin. http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2015\/06\/28\/paxton-county-clerks-can-deny-same-sex-marriage-li\/ Paxton issued a statement today that said county clerks do not have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if they have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9953\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It&#8217;s official: Texas AG says clerks can flout the law<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1170,1863,2652,4585,4984],"class_list":["post-9953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","tag-county-clerks","tag-gay-marriage","tag-ken-paxton","tag-texas-attorney-general","tag-u-s-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}