Of the 34 bills prefiled by Alaska lawmakers on Friday, none have been more controversial than Senate Bill 120 and House Bill 236.<\/p>\n
The bills, proposed by Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna; and Rep. David Talerico, R-Healy, respectively, were written in an attempt to shield clergy from the effects of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide last summer.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Micciche spoke plainly: \u201cThis is not a Kim Davis bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis is a county clerk in Kentucky who garnered national attention \u2014 and jail time \u2014 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite a court order and instructions from Kentucky\u2019s governor.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 120 states in part that \u201ca person permitted to solemnize a marriage … is not subject to criminal or civil liability for refusing to solemnize a marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the days immediately following the release of SB 120, Micciche was lambasted on social media and traditional media for \u201cintolerance,\u201d among other, unkinder words.<\/p>\n
After a bruising legal fight to legalize same-sex marriage, he said he can comprehend why same-sex marriage advocates might be tender about the topic, but it isn\u2019t his intention to restrict it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure people understand,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my mind and in my heart, there is nothing remotely anti-gay … in this legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
While SB 120 legally protects those who refuse to conduct marriages or marriage celebrations, it contains clauses that indicate that protection only covers ministers, priests, rabbis and other religious authorities.<\/p>\n
Alaska law allows any person to become a \u201cmarriage commissioner\u201d for a day and conduct a wedding. Those commissioners and the state\u2019s judicial officers \u2014 who also may conduct legally binding weddings \u2014 are not protected if they refuse to conduct a wedding.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, neither Micciche\u2019s bill nor Talerico\u2019s companion legislation in the House would permit anyone to refuse to issue a marriage license, as Davis did last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t outlaw or make same-sex marriage illegal,\u201d Talerico said. \u201cIt\u2019s really limited to the clergy.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the First Amendment states that \u201cCongress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise\u201d of religion, Micciche and Talerico both said the June 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage has created an opportunity to debate where exactly the line should be drawn between church and state.<\/p>\n
Should ministers or churches be permitted to discriminate against same-sex marriages? Or should they be forced to conduct those marriages even if their doctrine forbids them?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the recent ruling made this a healthy time to open the discussion,\u201d Micciche said.<\/p>\n
While it may be an appropriate time to open the discussion, he added that he doesn\u2019t expect that discussion to close any time soon. He said his \u201cpriorities one through ten\u201d of this Legislative session deal with the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a priority of mine that we have the discussion this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of the 34 bills prefiled by Alaska lawmakers on Friday, none have been more controversial than Senate Bill 120 and House Bill 236. The bills, proposed by Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna; and Rep. David Talerico, R-Healy, respectively, were written in an attempt to shield clergy from the effects of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}