ICYMI: Magistrates May Refuse Gay Marriage In NC Federal Court Says

CHARLOTTE, NC -- A U.S. federal appeals court has thrown out a legal challenge to a North Carolina law allowing state magistrates to refuse to perform same-sex marriages based upon religious beliefs, saying those who filed the suit do not have legal standing for the case.

The technicality that led the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reject the case Wednesday essentially upholds a 2015 law and potentially allows magistrates to perform the marriages based upon religious grounds, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The case “tests the balance between federal law and private religious beliefs,” the Observer said, citing Circuit Court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson’s stance that, “At the heart of this lawsuit is a debate over the extent to which religious accommodations can coexist with the constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

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Three couples challenged the law, arguing that it was improper that their tax dollars were being used to endorse a law that allowed a religious exemption to a judicial oath.

“The outcome here is in no way a comment on same-sex marriage as a matter of social policy,” the Observer quoted Wilkonson’s written decision. “The case before us is far more technical – whether plaintiffs, simply by virtue of their status as state taxpayers, have … standing. Based on a century of Supreme Court precedent, we conclude that they have not.”

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