No one who applies for a marriage license needs your blessing.

According to Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz, at least one of you (or perhaps several of you) may be ready to resign rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. We all can think of marriages we disapprove of, but if your moral objections to marriage equality render you unable to perform the duties of your job, by all means resign. Filling a county government position with good benefits is never a problem, especially in this economy.

Rest assured, as much as you dislike the idea of gays and lesbians getting married, people like me dislike the idea of taxpayer dollars going to someone like you.  

Don’t count on Senator Bartz to bail you out with his give-recorders-a-free-pass-to-discriminate amendment either. Senate President Jack Kibbie ruled that amendment out of order on Tuesday, and Bartz won’t succeed in getting it attached to a different bill for you. You need to either process same-sex couples’ applications for marriage licenses or find some other vocation, preferably in the private sector.

Speaking of which, Bartz seems to think that he and the disgruntled county recorders swore an oath to a different constitution than the one Iowa’s Supreme Court justices were interpreting when they unanimously struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. If Bartz doesn’t understand the concepts of checks and balances or judicial review, then like many of his fellow Republicans, he’s not well suited for a political career.