Get state out of the marriage business altogether, proposes State Rep. Rick Womick

 In the past I have often disagreed with some of the positions taken by Representative Rick Womick. Now however, I think Womick has come up with an idea that has merit and that is that the State should simply stop issuing marriage license. There is nothing that I am aware of that requires the state to issue marriage license.  The Supreme Court has said the State can not refuse to issue a marriage license to two people of the same sex.  However, what would happen it the State did not issue any marriage license?

People could still go to the local court house and have their marriage recorded, just as they can have a prenuptual agreement, a will, or a mortgage lien recorded. By recording something, the State bears no responsibility for its accuracy.  If Donald Duck and Micky Mouse want to have a marriage license recorded, the recording authority is simply recording the data, not validating it. It three people want to record a "marriage" that does not in and of itself make it legal or condoned by the State. If people want to get married and not bother recording the marriage, that would be fine too; they would still be married. I like what Womick is saying.  Unless I hear a persuasive agreement as to why this is not a good idea, I am for it.

I am not one who believes in the discredited theory of nullification. However, not cooperating with the Federal government is not the same as defying the Federal government. The U. S. Constitution does not even mention marriage.  Surely there is no way the Federal government could force a state to issue marriage license if the state decided to get out of the business of  doing so.

Womick wants return of common-law marriage

Rick Womick

Nashville Post,  December 28, 2015 by Geert De Lombaerde -   Citing the current "legal climate" — i.e., the Haslam administration's refusal to challenge the Supreme Court's marriage equality ruling — Rep. Rick Womick wants the state to stop issuing marriage licenses altogether and go back to being a common-law state on marriage.

Womick seeks end of marriage licenses 

Daily New Journal, by Scott Broden- ...  "The state Constitution says that marriage is between one man and one woman, and my personal belief is that God says that marriage is between one man and one woman," said Womick, a Republican who resides in Rutherford County's Rockvale community southwest of Murfreesboro. .... Womick said during a Tuesday phone interview that Tennessee should revert back to being a common-law state on marriage and stop issuing licenses for couples to wed."That would take the state out of the marriage business altogether,".... "If the Supreme Court will not allow us as a sovereign state to issue marriage licenses as we have decided, then we won’t issue them at all," Womick said. "If (the deciding five members of the Supreme Court) want to play this game, we are not going to abide by what they said.

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