Okay, our third Hero Award is smaller by comparison, but still worthy.Drew Reisinger is the Register of Deeds for Buncombe County, North Carolina. He is creating a challenge to a 2012 amendment to the state constitution which bans same-sex marriages. He says he will accept marriage license applications from same-sex couples - and then hold the licenses and ask North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper for legal advice.
Reisinger said he had been forced to deny same-sex marriage licenses to "upstanding citizens," and he felt like that was not fair.Reisinger's announcement came just hours after Attorney General Cooper revealed that he supports same-sex marriage. But Cooper also said his personal views won't prevent him from defending the ban in court.
Which may well be true and it's possible, even very probable, that Reisinger's actions will go nowhere, at least in the short term. But it does put the question to Cooper and by extension others: Will you actually defend in court a provision you believe is wrong - or would you, could you, might you, as Eric Holder did in the case of the Defense of Marriage Act, just decide to not mount a defense?
For using his official position to raise that question, Drew Reisinger is a hero.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/14/north-carolina-gay-marriage-ban_n_4099068.html
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