At this point, Kentucky’s Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is in jail for not doing her job. She was sent to jail for contempt of court last week for openly defying multiple court orders to obey the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all US states. Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court said:
The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order…If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.
Davis has maintained that issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples is against her Christian beliefs. This has prompted her attorneys and supporters to come up with some wildly fanciful comparisons, including this one from Rep. Steve King (R-IA):
He wasn’t the only Republican to try to co-opt black civil rights history. Her attorney, Mat Staver, went for this:
Kim joins a long list of people who were imprisoned for their conscience…People who today we admire, like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jan Huss, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more. Each had their own cause, but they all share the same resolve not to violate their conscience.
Republicans, particularly evangelical Christians, believe they are persecuted when other people receive the same rights that they have had for decades or possibly, centuries. Persecution would be burning a gay flag on Davis’s lawn or you know, firebombing her church. Nobody is physically assaulting her, or turning water cannons (or dogs) on her.
Saying same-sex marriage is Constitutional doesn’t create persecution for millions of Christians, no matter how badly Ms. Davis and her Conservative supporters dislike it. Asking her to do her job is not persecution.
But the grandstanding award goes to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who released this statement:
Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny. Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.
Cruz goes on to observe:
In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage opinion has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s opinion was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it.
Cruz then ups the ante:
Those who are persecuting Kim Davis believe that Christians should not serve in public office. That is the consequence of their position. Or, if Christians do serve in public office, they must disregard their religious faith–or be sent to jail.
And, of course, Cruz is only the most vituperative of the Republican candidates. With the exception of Lindsey Graham and Carly Fiorina, all the other Republican presidential candidates have criticized the decision to jail Ms. Davis.
While it’s fun to poke at Republicans for their response, we need to remember that Kim Davis is an elected Democrat. That said, she was elected county clerk after serving 26 years as a deputy clerk under her mother in the same county, with a total population under 24,000. Her party affiliation has little meaning in the context of the national debate about gay rights, but it sure says quite a bit when most Republican candidates purposefully misunderstand what religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment really means.
They purposefully misunderstand that this country was founded on the rule of law, and separation of church and state. That the codifying of separation was designed to put an end to the interference of religion in the operations of government, exactly what Ms. Davis was trying to do. Congress passes laws, the President signs them, the Supreme Court determines their constitutionality… and then they’re subject to the individual veto of every county clerk in America?
Ok, Ms. Davis has principles that flow from her religious beliefs. That is just fine, and her faith can be celebrated.
She might remember that while she believes same sex marriage is against religious tradition, divorce was also forbidden and then difficult to get, because of religion until relatively recently. The no-fault divorce was introduced by California Governor Ronald Regan in 1970. Before then, you went to Reno, Las Vegas, or Mexico if you couldn’t prove adultery.
Thus, today’s Kentucky county clerk, who has been divorced three times, wouldn’t have easily gotten a divorce just 50 years ago, because, religion.
It sucks to be on the wrong side of history.
