Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, filed a bill to allow magistrates to refuse to preside at same-sex weddings and assistant and deputy registers of deeds to not issue licenses based on “sincerely held religious objection.” But any such recusal must last at least six months, and the officials couldn’t be involved in traditional marriages either.
“What we’re talking about is trying to protect or at least recognize and provide an accommodation for people who have sincerely held beliefs that are protected by the First Amendment,” Berger said in an interview with The Associated Press. “So what we’re trying to is find a balance.”
Democratic lawmakers and the gay-rights group Equality North Carolina said at a news conference such a recusal measure is discrimination in disguise against gays and lesbians.
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Berger had said he’d file a recusal bill after federal judges last October struck down North Carolina’s 2012 constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman and a Rockingham County judge resigned in protest.
