Rights Collide as Town Clerk Sidesteps Role in Gay Marriages
 

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posted Friday, September 23, 2011 - Volume 39 Issue 38

Rights Collide as Town Clerk Sidesteps Role in Gay Marriages
Brett Carlsen for The New York Times

By THOMAS KAPLAN
Published: September 27, 2011

LEDYARD, N.Y. - Rose Marie Belforti is a 57-year-old cheese maker, the elected town clerk in this sprawling Finger Lakes farming community and a self-described Bible-believing Christian. She believes that God has condemned homosexuality as a sin, so she does not want to sign same-sex marriage licenses; instead, she has arranged for a deputy to issue all marriage licenses by appointment.

But when a lesbian couple who own a farm near here showed up at the town hall last month, the women said they were unwilling to wait.

Now Ms. Belforti is at the heart of an emerging test case, as national advocacy groups look to Ledyard for an answer to how the state balances a religious freedom claim by a local official against a civil rights claim by a same-sex couple.

full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/nyregion/rights-clash-as-town-clerk-rejects-her-role-in-gay-marriages.html?_r=1


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