Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Does God Authorize her Paycheck?



Refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples may feel like a "heaven or hell" issue for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and something she's doing under "God's authority", but at the end of the day, I think the issue really is, if she can't do her job, then in might be in the best interest of her conscience if she simply step down. I tend to agree with this Slate piece that suggests that her lawyers are driving this thing to a "martyrdom" for their client.

3 comments:

mikey said...

This whole 'religious liberty' thing is horseshit. It's OTHER PEOPLE who are getting married. She doesn't have to marry anyone she doesn't want to. She doesn't have to marry THEM. She just needs to do the entirely secular paperwork in order for them to comply with state law. The entire construct is premised on a kind of universal victimhood, where if you do something my religion forbids, you are harming me.

That's ridiculous, illogical and will lead to some bizarre and distinctly un American outcomes. Frankly, I enjoy it when these idiots pop up and get hammered down. I hope she gets her wish and gets to spend some time in jail - she'll have a chance to reflect on how the fellas got hitched, the judge went on to the next case, some other dood got paid to issue the marriage license, and basically it's just her butthurt theocratic idiot self who gets to wear a jump suit, sit in a cell with a bunch of rowdy street people and eat dry tuna sandwiches.

Nice choice. Hope some of your idiot friends join you...

Vixen Strangely said...

She doesn't have to marry THEM. She just needs to do the entirely secular paperwork in order for them to comply with state law. The entire construct is premised on a kind of universal victimhood, where if you do something my religion forbids, you are harming me.

Exactly. Apply it to something less sensational than sexuality, and it's like a Muslim clerk denying a business license to a BBQ joint. It's just not the same thing as participating in the acts she considers sinful.

There was recent ruling on similar lines regarding the Little Sisters of the Poor regarding the ACA birth control mandate. They objected to signing a waiver regarding their religious objection to birth control. It was only a signature, and the waiver didn't even say something that wasn't true--they had a religious objection to birth control. But even the process whereby their employee might obtain birth control in some way not funded by their covering it bothered them. (They lost that case.)

At some remove, being this "concerned" (I have to put it in quotes b/c it feels more political than religious to me) about the contagion of sin seems to make these folks with this particular notion of "religious freedom" unsuited for living in a world where people with any other views happen to live. And that doesn't sound a whole lot like freedom to me, at all.

Formerly Amherst said...

Howdy, Little Lady,
This county clerk enjoys being an elected official. As a consequence, we can assume that most of the citizens who voted for her appreciate her act of civil disobedience on behalf of their feelings.

In a case like this one where the force of law comes down through fiat rather than a decision politically made by citizen participation, her action is not surprising.

Once I said that I thought this would probably be the new Roe v. Wade, and I still believe that to be true.

The amusing thing to me when I look back is that in the old days all the civil disobedience was done by the left in protest against the establishment. Today the left has become the establishment and a bunch of people on the right are the ones demonstrating and trying to speak truth to power as they see it.

I believe you will see a lot more of this, and many court cases will occur. Most of the country would prefer a political solution to this issue, and so it is unreasonable to expect passivity from those who disagree. And I might mention that a lot of disagreement in the South is on the part of Democrats, just as most Confederate flags flying from cars and private property are flown by Democrats.

All the pieces have been thrown in the air, and it will be a hundred years before a clear reconciliation is seen. (Provided the velocity of the Kali Yuga doesn't spin things so out of control that reconciliation is not possible.) (Funny -- the voice I hear coming from the establishment sounds very much like my grandparents yelling at me during the 60s.)

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