Tuesday afternoon, leading state Republicans huddled together to try to find some way to thwart gay marriage. David Fowler and Bobbie Patray of the Tennessee Eagle Forum met with them to rile the troops.

According to an article in the Wilson Post, State Rep. Mark Pody is attempting to somehow nullify the decision:





"We are trying to say that because the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction in this matter, each state should be allowed to decide" if they are going to honor same-sex marriages. "As it has been proven in many other situations, the federal government can not force the state to enforce federal law," he said. "They would have to enforce it themselves with their resources, and they couldn't use state resources." In this case, Pody explained, if a state official refused to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony, the federal government could not force the State of Tennessee to enforce the federal law.

This is truly great and I hope it does come to pass, because I'd love to see every state official who discriminates against gay people as they're trying to get married hauled before a federal court. It'd be a huge waste of taxpayer dollars for state officials to have to defend themselves in federal court, cases they are surely going to lose, and I love how skipping the state courts basically assures the least sympathetic hearings ever.

According to the Tennessean, "Rep. Andy Holt of Dresden and Bryan Terry of Murfreesboro reject the court's ruling. It's still unclear what that means, but the pair recently announced they're working on legislation to 'protect' religious clergy from being forced to officiate same-sex marriages."

Of course ministers will be able to refuse to marry same sex couples, just as they can now refuse to marry interracial couples or couples of different faiths. But, sure, why not burn time on that?

On Twitter, Andy Sher writes, "Rep Lynn says public officials able to perform marriages but refuse SSM could get rough treatment from rascally news orgs." As well they should. I would hope they would also run into legal trouble, since they would be acting in their capacity as representatives of the state.

But boy howdy is David Fowler excited! Rick Locker reports that Fowler says , "If you decide to have a special session on this, it will be a war unlike any you have seen since perhaps the income tax fight."

Locker also reports Rep. Lynn's utter misunderstanding of marriage: "Rep Lynn says marriage was a construct of the church. The only reason governments started registering marriages was so they had a record..." This is not true. I mean, for starters, people have been getting married longer than there's been Christianity and people in the United States have been getting married since the founding of this country who weren't Christian.

I cannot believe that state legislators are taking time to figure out how to defy the federal government when it comes to gay marriage, but can't make the time to deal with our insurance crisis. It's hilarious.

I don't think this is going to be like the income tax fight, for one good reason. No politicians were secretly paying a Tennessee state income tax. If this gets as ugly as the income tax fight, not only will we lose, because, duh, states can't nullify federal law, a few people are playing chicken with a train.

That's not a threat. That's just a statistical fact.

It's obvious to anyone who pays even a little attention to Tennessee politics that Republicans have had a hard time adjusting to being the ruling party. They've thrived and gotten into power by throwing themselves repeatedly against a seemingly insurmountable foe—Tennessee Democrats—only to eventually and thoroughly surmount them. And they have floundered around, without a united front or coherent plan since they have no enemy to come together against.

So, I see the appeal of going on this Quixotic quest against the federal government. But, damn, if I were a Republican leader right now, I'd be concerned about who might have a skeleton or two "in the closet," so to speak.

Why would you, as a party, risk shooting yourself in the foot over a settled issue?



