Update: Alamance judge says all magistrates must perform marriages

Another magistrate in North Carolina has resigned in protest of North Carolina’s legal same-gender marriage recognition.

Swain County Magistrate Gilbert Breedlove’s resignation — effective Monday — comes a day after a magistrate in Rockingham County resigned.

Both are citing their religious beliefs, saying they cannot marry same-gender couples.

“I know what the Bible says and I know that it’s not right,” Breedlove has said.

In Rockingham County, Magistrate John G. Kallam, Jr., will resign on Oct. 31.

“It is my personal belief and a position of my Christian faith that doing so would desecrate a holy Institution established by God Himself,” Kallam wrote in a resignation letter.

Follow our continuing coverage as marriage equality comes to North Carolina…

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Matt Comer

Matt Comer previously served as editor from October 2007 through August 2015 and as a staff writer afterward in 2016.

13 replies on “Second N.C. magistrate resigns: ‘I know what the Bible says’”

  1. Remarrying thrice divorced rednecks… not a problem… even though the Bible is explicit about divorce….

    But the Bible says nothing about same sex marriage, either way. This is not about religion. It’s about bigotry and about grandstanding. “Oh, look at me. I’m a Christian, and I’m the victim here.”

    2. Anything to justify their ridiculous position. He knows what the bible says?! Does he wear blended fabric? Does he eat shellfish? Does he condone slavery? I think what he meant to say was”I know the one line in the bible that justifies my dumb-ass beliefs”

  2. Poor ingrate. Wants to fill his stomach with the food LGBT NC citizens put on his table but does not want to work for, respect, protect, and represent them. TOO BAD Herr Kallam! Your “Bible” and version of “God” are NOT the law in America. The constitution is the law and as a an employee of the people you are legally obligated to comply. Go be a priest if you want to force others to adhere to your religious beliefs against their free will. You clearly have no f@#king clue what the Constitution says.

  3. I’d have more respect for this doofus magistrate if he had continued his statement by saying, “I know what the Bible says, so I will not marry same-sex couples. I am also announcing that I will no longer eat pork and shrimp; I’m gonna rend and burn all my cotton/poly or cotton/rayon clothing; and my wife will have to stay in another room during her period. ‘Cause I know what the Bible says.”

      1. Oops. I meant for the comment “right on the money” as a thumbs-up to Jim’s comment, not to my own previous blurb.

  4. Mr. Breedlove knows “what the Bible says,” and I know what Dr. Seuss says. I like Dr. Seuss’ approach better. As for quitting your job over it that’s your privilege, but I say good riddance to bigots in bureaucracy. They can all walk and the citizens will be better off. The sooner the better actually.

  5. The homosexualist agenda is proving to be the biggest threat to American constitutional liberties since the Nazis.

    Gaystapo indeed.

  6. I actually applaud this magistrate, if you can’t abide by the Constitution then you should quit. But possibly you should also consider quitting when a court sentences someone to death or when people are put in prison for not being able to pay their debts.

  7. I think it’s well past the time that the federal and state governments stopped denying some of our citizens their civil rights. I was raised black in the South in the 1950s under Jim Crow laws, so I know exactly what it feels like to live in a country you love and not have the same rights as others. Having been raised by two very progressive-minded parents, I grew to hate any kind of racism, discrimination, and bigotry. Imho, it’s beyond stupid that anyone who knows what it’s like to have his/her civil rights taken from him/her, or infringed upon by others just for the hell of it, would endorse having anyone else subjected to such unnecessary pain and nonsense for any reason, including religious ones. Good riddance to these two NC officials who, in spite of their alleged ‘Christian values,” can’t find it within themselves to treat all Americans the same. Their resignations are a step toward forming what might one day truly be a “more perfect Union” in these United States.*

    *Sorry for the historical flourish at the end, but in my case, once a high school social studies teacher, always a student and lover of history.

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