Metro

Gay-nay marriage clerks say: ‘I don’t!’

Call them New York’s Re fuseniks.

Rosemary Centi has per formed marriage ceremo nies in upstate Guil derland for the past 10 years, hitching hundreds of satisfied men and women. For good, she hopes.

This morning, Centi (pictured) is doing her last wedding.

“I am Catholic,” she told me, “and my definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. It is a sacrament.”

Laura Fotusky has joined couples in holy matrimony in the tiny upstate town of Barker for four years. Her run ends Thursday.

“I’m a Christian,” Fotusky told me. “As a Christian, I have to follow the word of God.”

Until I told Fotusky about Centi, she didn’t know her sister in protest existed. But these women are paired by a deep, spiritual bond. One that defies New York’s Marriage Equality Act, which takes effect Sunday.

Centi and Fotusky refuse to wed people of the same sex. After praying and agonizing for weeks, each public servant came to an identical conclusion: They’d rather quit than unite.

On July 11, Fotusky, 57, wrote an emotional letter to Barker officials. She resigned as town clerk of the hamlet near Buffalo, which has a population of just over 2,700. Her resignation takes effect Thursday, three days before gay marriage becomes the law of the state.

Readers know that I have come to accept same-sex marriage. But I cannot fathom why New York allows a rabbi, priest or Shinto minister to refuse, legally, to perform gay weddings — but the law extends not one lick of respect to nonordained individuals of faith.

“I believe that there is a higher law than the law of the land,” Fotusky wrote to town officials. “It is the law of God in the Bible.”

Marriage demand isn’t huge in Barker — Fotusky performed six weddings last year. Still, she’s giving up a job that paid $25,300 annually, an extreme hardship for the married mother of five.

Centi, 56, a married mom of three, will keep the $56,000-a-year post as town clerk of Guilderland, population 35,000, near Albany, to which she was elected as a Democrat in 2000. She was appointed marriage officer in 2001. It’s unpaid, except “sometimes, I was given a gift” by happy couples, whom she wed at a rate of four per month.

Money isn’t the point.

“I have a number of friends whom I adore” who are gay, Centi told me. “I respect an individual’s right to live their life however they chose to do.” She paused.

“So I would expect the same courtesy.”

And there’s the rub.

I was horrified to hear Gov. Cuomo react flippantly to Fotusky’s resignation.

“This is the law,” he said last week. “When you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose. If you can’t enforce the law, then you shouldn’t be in that position.”

Now, Bronx disc jockey Clifton McLaughlin, a born-again Christian, says he’ll refuse, if asked, to work at gay weddings.

“This is based on God’s law,” McLaughlin told me. “There is no way man can come with his own law.”

Could he be punished? Well, yes! A gay couple denied service by a DJ, not to mention a florist or wedding band, has grounds to sue in Civil Court, a Cuomo spokesman told me.

Fotusky has learned, to her amazement, that she has no right to religious freedom in her home state.

“I was struggling so much with making the decision” whether to resign, she said. “It was a matter of conviction.

“And if you really believe, you have to act on it. As a Christian, I have to follow the word of God.”

The soon-to-be unemployed clerk is now busy training her successor.

This is an outrage. All people — gay and straight, atheists and observers — have a moral duty to rise up and protest. This is about freedom.

If we fail to protect those with whom we disagree, everyone’s liberty is at risk.

Do not believe ‘crazy’ defense

He knew damn well what he was doing.

Levi Aron, the savage accused of murdering sweet, 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky in a bloody frenzy, ended his handwritten confession with this: “I understand this may be wrong and I’m sorry for the hurt that I have caused.”

He understands.

This did not stop Aron’s lawyer, Pierre Bazile, from setting the stage for an insanity defense. “He hears voices and suffers from hallucinations,” Bazile said in court Thursday. Aron entered a plea of “not guilty” to charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping. A judge ordered a mental-health evaluation.

Reasonable people will believe that any man who, allegedly, cuts a child into pieces is out of his mind. But the legal test is clear. Does Aron know what he’s accused of doing? Does he understand that it’s wrong?

Forget the lawyers. You read the truth in Aron’s own words. He should burn.

A bit touched in Maryland

And you thought the wicked nannies of New York’s Health Department had lost their minds. Well, in Maryland, camp counselors and campers who slather skin-saving sunscreen on a child are looked upon as potential pedophiles.

Last month, Maryland’s dirty-minded health apparatus put out regulations stating that “camp staff should limit touching the camper as much as possible. Under no circumstances should campers assist each other in the application of sunscreen.” I kid you not.

When the media caught on to the loony regs, Maryland reversed course, and deleted rules directly prohibiting counselors and campers from applying lotion on their friends. However — parents now must sign permission slips before their campers can receive sunblock.

Nothing about banning the consumption of trans fats, salt, sugar or grease. I guess they’re behind.

Stars wed? They must be kid-ding

Yielding to pressure from their kids, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are thinking about getting married, Us Weekly reported. Yippee!

This would mean the six children Brangelina have conceived and adopted are statistically less likely to become pregnant as teens (the girls) or wind up in prison (the boys).

Then again, the brood lives mainly in anything-goes Hollywood. All bets are off.


Pity the non-city

People who live in the sticks tend to be fatter and sadder and live shorter lives than those of us who regularly tread city streets, The Wall Street Journal reports.I knew it!

I’ll take Manhattan, Brooklyn and some parts of The Bronx. The thought of shoveling and mowing rural “Green Acres” without the benefit of late-night Chinese-food delivery is just too depressing.