Okay, so the Supreme Court has put a hold on further Gay Marriages in Utah pending an appeal of the ruling that allowed them to proceed. I didn't like that but I can kinda understand it.
Then today, the government in Utah said that not only will no further licenses to marry be granted to same-sex couples but the marriages already performed of man and man or woman and woman are no longer to be recognized. In other words, they weren't valid even though they were valid when the state issued these people licenses to wed. On the other hand, couples who obtained new drivers' licenses under new married names can keep them.
The Attorney General said, "Please understand this position is not intended to comment on the legal status of those same-sex marriages — that is for the courts to decide." But of course, refusing to recognize a marriage is commenting on its legal status. It's changing it from an actual marriage to TBD.
Has this ever happened anywhere? Has any couple, straight or gay, ever gone down to a courthouse, obtained a marriage license from the state, entered into Holy Matrimony, then been told, "Whoa! We're not sure if we had the power to issue you that license we issued so for the time being, let's pretend for the time being you aren't married"?
I understand that the state's position may be mandated by the wording of the laws that are in place but, boy, does this just point up how ridiculous it is to have any of these laws and not just let consenting adults marry each other. What about a couple that abstained from having pre-marital sex? I think that's what you're supposed to do in Utah, right? So they refrain until they're married and once they're married, they consummate the marriage with a lot of sex. That's also what you're supposed to do in Utah, right? And then the state says, "Whoops! Maybe you weren't married!"
Hasn't the state just retroactively turned marriage into adultery? Or something like that…