Religious Belief and Civil Service

The case of Orville Nichols is being portrayed as a matter of a conflict between duties and morality. Basically, Mr. Nichols' refusal to marry a gay couple in 2005 has been portrayed as a "I have no problem with xxxx but I won't participate" situation.

Now, in a situation like the solemnization of a marriage one might argue that the couple should simply go find another marriage commissioner that is willing to marry them and get over it. To a certain extent, I might well agree. However, let's be a little cautious in our assessment of how reasonable such a situation might be.

Let's consider, for example, a more serious situation. You find yourself in need of medical treatment (e.g. a blood transfusion) for some reason or another. The doctor looks at you and says "you need a transfusion, but because I am a Jehovah's Witness, my religion forbids me from treating you". Or, the doctor finds out that you are "living in sin" with your partner, and refuses to treat you because their particular sect believes that sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin. In such a situation, if we accept the reasoning of Mr. Nichols, the doctor is perfectly within their rights to make such a claim and leave the scene for someone else to deal with. (Heaven help you if they are the only doctor on shift!)

In a slightly less drastic scenario, let's consider other forms of civil service. For example, making an application at city hall for a business license. Let's assume that a gay couple goes into city hall to apply for a license to operate a coffee shop in the part of town known by many to be "the gay ghetto". Does the clerk processing the application, who happens to be a devout Baptist that believes homosexuality is a mortal sin, have the right to refuse to process their application - which is otherwise perfectly legal?

Or similarly, would emergency services personnel have the right to refuse aid to someone at the scene of an accident or crime on the basis of their individual beliefs? (As happened in the case of Tyra Hunter some years ago)

Nobody is asking Mr. Nichols to "park his beliefs at the door". Far from it in fact. Mr. Nichols is acting as an agent of the government, and as such is bound in that capacity by the rules that bind the government. Yes, as a civil servant, he is obliged to recognize the distinction between the legal obligations of government and his own personal morals and ethics. If Mr. Nichols wishes to have the right to decide which couples he is going to marry on the basis of his personal religious beliefs, then he should become an ordained minister of that faith, and exercise that right within that context. Otherwise, it's a matter of personal faith, and he needs to create his own internal balance between his faith and the obligations of his job as an agent of the government.

As far as I am concerned, Mr. Nichols has acted in more or less the same fashion as Scott Brockie did - and the implications of giving civil servants the right to refuse service to someone based on the servant's personal beliefs is very troubling indeed.