As same-sex couples begin to marry this week, we need to be vigilant against new forms of bias.

Take Kern County Court Recorder Ann Barnett’s June 5 decision to suspend marriage ceremonies in Kern County for example.

The suspension does not affect the ability of same-sex couples to acquire a marriage license, and it pertains to everyone, gay or straight. But it’s obviously a pretext for discrimination against same-sex couples because Barnett’s reasoning – that Kern County can’t afford to provide the ceremonies – is untenable: The service generates revenue. Further, as reported in the Bakersfield Californian, Barnett had the opportunity to eliminate marriage ceremonies earlier this year when she was charged with reducing expenditures, but she did not do so.

Barnett’s action is reminiscent of those taken by cities in some Southern states after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in 1954, that neither state nor local governments could segregate based on race.

Rather than comply with integration, some local governing boards looked for ways to stop providing services to blacks. One city even stopped providing swimming pools to prevent blacks from swimming with whites.

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Palmer v. Thompson, that because the city showed it was operating the pools at a loss, it could close them without violating the Constitution. But the court made it clear that it would not tolerate suspension of services to avoid compliance with civil rights statues.

Similarly, Barnett cannot terminate a service for “budgetary reasons,” when, in fact, marriage ceremonies generate money for Kern County, and when her actual reason for doing so may be her private moral beliefs (as the San Jose Mercury reported were evident in an internal memo between one of Barnett’s top officials and the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund).

Barnett asked Barnett asked the ADF to defend any challenge to her actions. The ADF, which is committed to anything challenging gay equality (especially when the publicity generates donations that will continue to pay their lawyers) would argue her case based on her right to abstain from behaving in a manner contrary to her personal religious beliefs. Obviously it could not argue that Barnett is supporting the oath that she, as a public official, took to uphold the law in California.

If the Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights investigates and finds that Barnett is concocting an excuse to suspend marriage ceremonies, it may charge her with conspiracy to violate civil rights of individuals (both straight and gay) to marry.

Indeed, the Attorney General’s Office might also consider investigating the ADF and other groups that encourage refusing services on the basis of “religious” grounds. After all, California, which adopted its civil rights statute more than 100 years ago, had the good sense to require private businesses to provide services to individuals even if doing so conflicted with their religious beliefs.

Barnett and other county clerks considering listening to right-wing groups such as The Campaign for Children and Families and the group Liberty Counsel, which oppose same-sex marriage and which are urging clerks to deny licenses to same-sex couples until after the outcome of a statewide ballot initiative in November that would bar such unions, should take note: a public official’s first responsibility is to uphold the law.