The state of North Carolina is paying $300,000 to a magistrate who quit rather than marry gay couples as ordered by the courts.
Gayle Myrick was a magistrate in Union County, North Carolina, and one of her regular duties was to perform marriages. In 2014, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that gay marriage was a federal constitutional right, the North Carolina courts ordered magistrates in the state to comply. 1
Myrick then went to her supervisors and told them that as a matter of religious belief, she could not perform same-sex marriages. She worked out an accommodation that would let her keep marrying straight couples while someone else married gay couples in her county. The state government told her that North Carolina had no exemption option in its guidelines. So Myrick resigned.
Even if you don’t agree with her judgment (disclosure: I don’t), it’s possible to respect Myrick’s decision to step down from her job rather than violate her religious conscience.
But the story doesn’t end there, because Myrick filed a discrimination complaint that eventually reached the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The essence of her claim was that she should not have had to resign, because her employer, the state of North Carolina, should have taken reasonable steps to accommodate her religious beliefs.
An administrative law judge agreed with Myrick. He found that she had been involuntarily terminated and ordered that the state give her back pay and attorney fees.
Read the full story at the Bloomberg View
