Alliance Defending Freedom: OK Court Clerks Don't Have To Violate Beliefs

Despite the recent ruling that made gay marriage legal in Oklahoma, court clerks do not have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if it violates their personal beliefs.

That is the message from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

After an Oklahoma couple sued Tulsa County Court Clerk, Sally Howe-Smith, over her refusal to issue same-sex marriage license, lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom stepped in to represent Howe-Smith.

They ended up losing the case when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing same-sex marriages in Oklahoma; but Howe-Smith's attorneys said her moral beliefs are still protected.

Dozens of same sex couples have said “I do” since the ban on gay marriage was lifted in Oklahoma.

10/6/2014 Related Story: Stay Lifted: Same-Sex Marriage Now Legal In Oklahoma

They are getting licenses in the very office where the Tulsa County court clerk refused to issue them and was eventually sued.

"I took an oath to follow the constitution and Oklahoma State law, so it would have been illegal for me to issue a marriage license to someone other than a man and woman,” Howe-Smith said.

Now that the ban on gay marriage in Oklahoma is lifted, Howe Smith hasn't had a change of heart.

“The law is what it is. I believe that, for me personally, marriage is between a man and a woman and it's lasted and worked well for me for 39 years. But everybody is entitled to their own belief system,” she said.

An Appeals Court struck down Oklahoma's definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but Howe-Smith's attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom said clerks still don't have to violate their beliefs.

"If they find it contrary to their conscious to issue a license to a same-sex couple they have the ability to refer that obligation to someone else,” said attorney, Kellie Fiedorek.

Howe-Smith said, "I don't see that that is going to solve anything other than to pass the buck onto someone else. I mean I am here to do clerk work and that's what I was elected to do, so to not do it would not be appropriate in my opinion."

Howe-Smith said she will issue Oklahoma's new licenses to all couples; but instead of bride and groom, the office will sign off on new marriage licenses which now say spouse one and spouse two.

The Alliance Defending Freedom said they will represent any court clerk free of charge if necessary.