Judge Faces Removal for Refusing Same-Sex Marriages

A Wyoming judge urged the state's Supreme Court Wednesday to let her remain on the bench despite her publicly stated refusal to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, citing religious objections.
The state's judicial ethics commission recommended that Ruth Neely be relieved of her position as a magistrate in the small northwestern Wyoming town of Pinedale, after she told the local newspaper that she would "not be able to do" marriage ceremonies for gay couples.



"When law and religion conflict, choices have to be made," she told the Pinedale Roundup.
In a letter to the state's judicial ethics advisory committee, she wrote, "Homosexuality is a named sin in the Bible, as are drunkenness, thievery, lying, and the like. I can no more officiate at a same-sex wedding than I can buy beer for the alcoholic."