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Kim Davis and Faith in the Workplace
Kim Davis, the court clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples is going to jail for contempt of court. Her reasons for refusing to do so are because, in her own words, “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.”
So quit your job, Kim. Problem solved.
I worked for ten years as a commercial/advertising photographer, and there were jobs I turned down on moral and religious grounds. I took a hit in the wallet for doing so, but I walked away with a clear conscience and good feeling knowing that there were just some things I would not do for money. Come to think of it, I’ve had moral qualms of one kind or another at just about every job I’ve had because I’m surrounded by people who don’t share my convictions. It’s not that I was asked to do anything illegal, but in every job, there are corners that can be cut and rules that can be bent. There were/are some lines I will not cross.
Yes, it’s more difficult to act like a Christian now than it was in, say, 1957 or thereabouts. However, how difficult was it for Paul, Barnabas, Aquila, Priscilla, et al., to live their lives in a culture and legal system that offered them no help whatsoever when it came to taking a stand for Christ? Despite that hostile environment, an environment in which thousands were killed for their beliefs, Christianity flourished and covered all of the Roman empire and the world. Maybe we need to take a long, hard look at the relationship between our faith, our culture, and our politics, and ask ourselves which of the three is truly most important in our lives.
Published in General
Of course Ben Shapiro says it eloquently:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/04/standwithkim-davis/
Tar and feathers is too mild.
Larry Summers’ signature is on all the money in my pocket. Can Obama’s present or former secretary of the Treasury object to how I spend it? The money bears his signature, after all. Does that give him veto power? I say it doesn’t. And the same goes for this clerk. Some on this thread have said, “someone else could do it–why did it have to be her?” Because she ordered them not to do it, until she was jailed.
If the SoCons want a martyr, they’d better choose better. Drudge’s headline screamed “Jailed For Refusing to Marry Gays!” She doesn’t “marry” anybody. She’s the most minor of minor bureaucrats.
It’s perhaps the way it has to be, but it’s not a “problem solved.”
In an ideal world, the government would be prohibited from discriminating against people for the usual reasons, while individuals and their private businesses would be free to do so. And even in a less than ideal world, it’s probably not good for agents of the government to be discriminating in the way that, say, the IRS does.
So Kim probably has to issue the licenses or go to jail, and she has made her choice. And just because Obama and Holder give themselves extremely wide latitude as to whether they will uphold the laws doesn’t mean Kim gets the same latitude.
But the problem isn’t solved if Kim leaves her job. It’s one thing to tell a person to quit her government job if government jobs are only 5 percent of the total opportunities available. It’s another if government jobs account for over half of the good jobs. If Kim has to quit her job, we shouldn’t wash our hands of the issue and say “problem solved” without first saying, “OMG, we need to make the government a lot smaller to provide greater scope for people to follow their religion!” Only after we have done that will the “free exercise” clause of the first amendment have any practical meaning, and will we be able to say, “problem solved.”
So, the lady is not your ideal martyr. She should have been better looking too. With all of the scoff-laws in American government, from the White House down, this is the one that goes to jail?
This case should be played up as much as possible because it perfectly illustrates the “tolerance” of the left.
Is there a procedure for expelling someone from the Democratic Party? Has it been commenced for Ms Davis?
The left’s, particularly the “marriage equality” advocates, concept of “fairness” is that, if you don’t like the soup, piss in it so no one can have any.
This is rather enlightening.
I can’t quote the whole thing, but we have a situation of both journalistic malfeasance (as per usual) and possibly a completely unnecessary (illegal?) jailing.
Of course, she’s already guilty in the court of public opinion, and has been duly shamed by sneering lefties for have been married four times (and shamed by people who insist we not shame others for such a thing). But was jailing her the only option available? Of course not. Of course not.
I live in a country where HRC, can spin up an unsecured serve and spill state secrets to all while running a “private charity” for her families personal gain. Notice there is nobody is in jail for this despite more federal laws violated than we can easily count, but she will most likely be our next president.
I live in a country that has an IRS that can persecute citizens that are of a different ideology than the ruling class, delete all evidence for the same and nobody go to jail.
I live in a country where one county officer in a backwater part of one state that does not enforce a new law immediately that the ruling class embraces is jailed immediately when she resisted.
I live in a banana republic where the rule of law is dictated by the whim of the powerful and where the weak have little or no say.
I too used to believe in the Rule of Law. Then I realize that it is as it has always been. The rule of power. The power of one person or group of people to enforce and inflict their will upon the others. The Law is nothing more than a fictional tool used as a justification to project that power.
Political corruption and crony capitalism and other such things are the way of the world. Those that understand that and can master it may rule this world those that do not have can have their children wash up on beaches in the middle of nowhere.
All your belief in the Rule of Law does is help the corrupt get their way.
All that is happening in KY is political theater, it is the elite letting it be known that this law is to be followed no matter what. To defy this law means the loss of all, including your freedom. Before this is over this Clerk may / can / will lose her job, her family, her friends, her freedom and maybe her life.
What if a judge started issuing decisions that violated Supreme Court precedent because he said it violated his religious beliefs? Could he be incarcerated? No. Impeached maybe, but not incarcerated.
What if a legislature started passing laws that that did the same. Could a court order the elected representatives in the legislature to change the law or else go to jail? No.
What if a governor did the same? Could he be jailed? No.
So why is this elected official in jail?
I’m a little late to the party but I agree 100%. The proper response is to resign your position if your job qualifications require you to violate your convicitions.
Is this thread about Kim Davis or gun laws in DC…..? There are dozens of issues the left is delinquent on, but the press doesn’t report on them so you don’t hear about the outrage. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I think it quite telling that the US Supreme Court created a religious test as a qualification for public office.
Nope – it is a fiscal reason, that being the legislature is not in session and it costs money to hold a special session.
I completely agree.
But I find it interesting that back in Kentucky (according to that piece from GetReligion I linked above) legislators are trying to find a compromise. Perhaps this should have stayed a local issue.
But it has to be turned into a national issue pour encourager les autres, and one little nobody from nowheresville has to be destroyed because Alinsky sez so.
Another option, instead of resigning, is for the person to become a public martyr and call attention to the injustice of it all. Both have been known to have been tried.
The dangerous thing here is that this may become a greater precedent for the feds taking control of elected local officials and removing control from the local electorate. We found that to be desirable during the civil rights era; hardly a day goes by that I don’t curse the southern racists and bigots for bringing matters to such an intolerable state that we now have formed the habit of thinking it’s automatically proper for the feds to step in and overrule the locals.
[Moved to start a new conversation.]
Exactly. It’s unilateral disarmament in the culture wars and far too many people here support it.
Ensuring the civil service is judenrein, christianrein and, were it not for taqiyya, muslimrein.
Free Kentucky Kim D. ky and lets get the States out of the Marriage business.
The oligarchs have spoken. It is time to move on. Who knows what they will decide next. How about the minimum wage based on some wage fairness principle that has never been heard of or how much is appropriate for carbon taxes based on some other legal mumbo jumbo? Frankly the First and Second amendments are probably in for some radical interpretating. They are a justice or two from all kinds of mischief and enjoy an increasingly more compliant population. Well at least we will be able to watch porn and abort our children. Our dear leaders are very generous.
Well, Protestants are arguably not really allowed on the Supreme Court much anymore. Republican presidents nominate Catholics as a way to stand up for abortion rights and tempt Democrats into saying something anti-Catholic. All Supreme Court justices are now essentially required to attend either Harvard or Yale while New England, New York, and New Jersey are areas completely dominated by Catholics except for perhaps one small corner of sparsely-populated Vermont. I’m not sure that Harvard or Yale have a lot respect for Catholics, but I think that they have complete disregard for Protestants.
I understand that all viewpoints are welcome here, but to say, “Quit your job, Kim,” to this woman is so obnoxious I just don’t understand that any conservative, which is what I thought this place was about, could take such a cavalier attitude to religious liberty. Especially since the Supreme Court opinion which imposed this travesty on Kim Davis and on America is as lawless as Dred Scott.
Same sex marriage is not the law of the land, it is the personal preference of Anthony Kennedy and four leftist goose steppers.
Religious liberty is a winnable fight until you start picking battles as terrible as this.
Sometimes the battles pick you. And if you fail to fight because there is some flaw in each battle that comes along, you send the message to yourself and everyone else that the fight isn’t so important after all. And you’ll find you won’t fight it when the next battle that comes up is just right, because you’ve gotten into a habit of saying, “No, not this one. A different one.”
I’m currently listening to A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic” by John Ferling. One of the things I’ve learned is how some of the agitators in Boston kept trying to provoke an over-reaction from the British in an environment in which they needed to counter a lot of the establishment-people in Boston who were saying, “No, not this battle. Not stamps. Not tea. Maybe a different one.” Something similar may be happening now.
The battle picked her.
This is a great point. Very important. We should not make the mistake the Left makes with jihadists — believing they’re rational actors and if we just explain things to them, they’re open to reason.
Our opponents on this matter are the same people morally inverted enough to declare CO2 a pollutant and AGW the greatest crisis of our age. We can’t wait for the perfect conditions for this fight.
Kim Davis took her stand because she recognizes that words mean things.
We, as conservatives, recognize that it is through the instruments of our minds that it is possible for us to know truth. To abdicate on that principle is to turn away from our responsibility as citizens of a country with a republican government. Ultimately, it is a question of who owns the government.
She need not abdicate any principles. She must do her job or leave her job. The third option of I keep my job, but don’t do my job, is not nearly so noble as it has been presented here.
No, she decided the rules don’t apply to her. Or if you prefer, that if she doesn’t like her government, she need not change it, but may simply implement it according to her wishes.
It seems like there’s some confusion in this thread about Ms. Davis’ legal situation. This is my understanding of the course of events:
(1) Davis, as a county clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue any marriage licenses to gay couples (she may have declined to issue any marriage licences, but I can’t find confirmation of that) in the wake of the Obergefell decision, which held that the U.S. Constitution grants gays the right to marry.
(2) The aggrieved gay couples sued Davis in federal court, presumably under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, arguing that Davis’ actions, in her capacity as a government official (county clerk), violated their constitutional rights.
(3) The federal district court judge agreed with plaintiffs, and ordered Davis to issue the licenses sought by plaintiffs. He did, however, stay his order pending appeal both to the 6th Circuit and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither appellate court took her case.
(4) After her appeals had been exhausted, Davis still refused to comply, and the federal district court judge jailed her as a sanction for her contempt of the court order.