San Diego county clerk: Let me ‘enforce state law’ by denying marriage licenses to same sex couples

Ernest “Ernie” Dronenburg, the county clerk in San Diego, California, and his lawyers filed an emergency petition before the California courts this afternoon asking for a temporary stay to state Attorney General Kamala Harris’ (D) recent order to start accepting marriage licenses applications. Her order followed the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of same sex marriage and the Monday state Supreme Court ruling refusing to issue a stay to other petitioners.

Dronenburg seeks an immediate stay in order to refrain from issuing marriage licenses while his case is considered, after which he claims to expect that he will not be forced by the state to issue such licenses. In his brief (available at BuzzFeed), Dronenburg argues that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over marriage in the state, that the state officials who ordered county clerks to issue marriage licenses in keeping with the courts’ rulings have no authority to tell him what to do, and that he is the one attempting to uphold the actual state law which supposedly defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Dronenburg additionally claims that, without an injunction to allow him to deny marriage licenses to couples seeking to marry in the county, he is “suffering, and will continue to suffer, irreparable injury and damage.”

No. Now get out.