GREEN GROVE, OREGON — While the proponents in the fight for marriage equality scored a historical victory this past June when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states cannot pass same-sex marriage bans as those laws would violate the spirit and intent of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of The United States of America, opponents of equality have been grabbing large headlines of late. In Rowan County, Kentucky, County Clerk Kim Davis is currently in a jail cell under contempt of court charges for ignoring a Federal judge’s order that she begin handing out marriage licenses to all couples — regardless of their sexual orientation — that come to her office seeking a marriage license. While various conservative pundits and politicians have come to Davis’ defense, Judge Vance D. Day has made headlines out of Oregon for refusing to marry same-sex couples, choosing instead to direct his clerks to send gay couples to another judge.
Though Judge Day has not pulled the kind of headlines that Davis has, one of the circuit judge’s Oregonian colleagues did, and has mounted a counter-protest to what she calls the “egregious abuse of the Freedom of Religion” by Day and Davis. In the Honorable Elaine T. Meyers’ courtroom in Green Grove, Oregon, things are going to “be run really old school,” according to Meyers. That’s because Meyers says she’s “an old school Christian with an old school belief in the Old Testament,” which she says she intends to let color her official duties, just as Day and Davis have.
“I’m going to be very plain and simple about my deeply held religious beliefs, based of course in the Old Testament,” Judge Meyers told The Political Garbage Chute, and that includes “finding out if they are following God’s teachings when it comes to what they eat, and what precautions are taken when the bride to be has her period.” According to Meyers, she plans to ask all prospective couples who enter her courtroom to submit to a stomach pumping and/or stool examination to determine if they have eaten either pork or shellfish — two dietary items considered “off limits” by Old Testament biblical scripture, and if they have any remnants of either in their stomach or stool contents, they will be asked to go to another judge.
Meyers told our reporter she is “doing this to make a very simple point.” That point, she says, is that “times change, people change, and yes, even traditions change.” Meyers said that she understands why “some people would think” she is “being extreme,” but that she “has a point to make here, and that point is that trying to judge people living in the modern era by some antiquated measure of right and wrong is just ludicrous.”
“For one thing, not everyone believes the Old Testament is God’s law anymore,” Meyers admitted,”so why should anyone have to alter their life for my arbitrary belief in a deity I can’t neither prove or disprove?” Secondly, Meyers told us, “the simple fact is that in 2015 most people understand food cleanliness and safety standards so there’s no need to threaten Draconian punishments for eating bacon.” Despite all this, according to Meyers she “still [has] to do this” because “maybe if [she does], it’ll break through the layer of religious fervor these people are displaying and get them to see the beauty and real wisdom behind something like the separation of church and state.”
“They keep telling us that the courts have no right to redefine such a tradition as marriage,” Judge Meyers said, “but the so-called institution of marriage has changed dozens of times since it was first conceived. It’s not a strictly religious act, and it should therefore not be subject to religious rules; not unless the marrying couple wants to adhere to them. And don’t give me this bullshit about ‘getting government out of marriages altogether.’ That’s a fine sentiment to believe in, the cat’s already out of the bag, so are you really telling me your solution for equality is to rob everyone of certain protections rather than simply extend them to another minority group? Stupid,” Judge Meyers said while reiterating, “just absolutely stupid.”
Meyers said that her Old Testament court will only last as long as Judge Day’s “theocratic courtroom” does. She said that “as soon as Judge Day joins the 21st century, my court room will do join him” but that “until that day comes, I will pump every bride’s stomach and check every groom’s feces for pork remnants” because opponents of marriage equality are, in her words, “being even more intrusive” since “I just want to see what’s coming out of your asshole; they want to see what’s in.”
“That’s not America,” Meyers told us at the end of the interview, “that’s Biblical law. We don’t do that here. They can join up with ISIS if that’s their thing, though.”
