Rose Marie Belforti, the town clerk for
Ledyard, New York, is refusing to sign marriage licenses for gay and
lesbian couples.
Belforti has asked the town board to
allow her to delegate her responsibility to a deputy clerk.
In
an interview with the Christian conservative site CitizenLink,
Belforti said her Christian beliefs would not allow her to sign the
documents.
“I am a Christian,” she told the
site. “God is the final word. He is the truth, and I believe what
the Bible says. When I considered this, God was there with me and I
really knew inside, without waver, that this is not right. It is the
law now, and I do want to obey the law because God wants me to do
that, but personally for me to administer this application to a
couple of the same sex would be very difficult.”
Belforti went on to suggest that gay
marriage could lead to bestiality.
“I don't personally have any problem
with gay people. I have friends who are gay. This is more a policy
issue for me. The new marriage application form says,
'Bride/Groom/Spouse' on both sides. You can tell what your sex is,
but it's optional.”
“I see a lot of problems with this
form. For instance, I don't know if, when we consider historically
that people are going to go back and look at their genealogy and try
to find out who their relatives are, when they come upon this form
and they see father or parent, mother or parent, they're never going
to know if that's their real mother and father or if it's just a
neighbor who was raising them or an uncle or an aunt or anybody …
because a parent really can be anyone. We have these names on here
and no on will ever know if it's a woman or a man, if it's same-sex
or not.”
“I'm worried there's another agenda
involved here other than just allowing same-sex couples to be
married. We know what a bride is, we know what a groom is – but if
we choose to be a 'spouse,' does that even limit [marriage] to a
human being? Do you know what I'm saying?”
Belforti added that she might sue the
town if they don't honor her request.