Summary
Syracuse City Court Judge Felicia Pitts Davis refused to officiate a same-sex wedding, citing religious beliefs.
Another judge, Mary Anne Doherty, performed the ceremony.
Pitts Davis’ actions, considered discriminatory under New York judicial ethics and the Marriage Equality Act, are under review by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct
Ok, let’s continue to focus on this technicality then.
Let’s say that’s true, and that anything other than witnessing the vows and signing the form is “ceremonial” and covered under freedom of speech. (Forget the part where you need to, you know, prompt each party for their vows. Not like you just sit there, stone cold, and they walk up and start talking to each other. But anyways.) The role of public servants is to be impartial and provide a common good or service to all citizens. And for a judge especially, this is extremely important. If a judge shows signs of bias, it could call into question the ways that they interpret the law. Did they also make biased judgements? Did they interpret laws to target certain classes of people, when they could get away with it?
So, if all of that is speech, then I propose that judges should be required to perform the same procedure for all couples when they are doing so as a service in a court. If they say “kiss the bride” to one couple, they have to say “kiss the ___” to all of them. That’s fair, prevents judges from seeming biased and prevents the institution from seeming biased, and allows judges to decide what they want to do as part of the proceedings. They can each have their own flair, or just do the basic witness + signing.
Would that be acceptable, in your view?