Kentucky Clerk, Kim Davis

[Basilisa Marie]

Her evil or sinful actions of the past do not justify the fascist mindset of those that want to force her against her will commit sin in the present. Maybe it would be easier for us to see how ridiculous this mindset is if it were used against a doctor. A doctor that in the past performed abortions or gave out contraceptives, but has repented, and now refuses to perform abortions. The doctors past wouldn't justify those that would want to force him/her to sin presently.

A better ananlogy would be a doctor who works for a hospital or clinic that says all doctors must perform abortions. The doctor can refuse and get fired, or the doctor can quit and find a job elsewhere. 

[Guest]

So she is a Martyr KoC? My apologies.

 

Edited September 3, 2015 by Guest

[hotpink]

Her evil or sinful actions of the past do not justify the fascist mindset of those that want to force her against her will commit sin in the present. Maybe it would be easier for us to see how ridiculous this mindset is if it were used against a doctor. A doctor that in the past performed abortions or gave out contraceptives, but has repented, and now refuses to perform abortions. The doctors past wouldn't justify those that would want to force him/her to sin presently.

No one is forcing her to keep this job.  No one forces a Dr to remain an OBGYN.  Considering the regulation of the healthcare market today and so many natropaths and legitimate dr's who do stupid and dangerous things.  If a Dr. continued employment with a office that did abortions, that's their own fault.  This is not 1900's Russia or China.  We're not assigned jobs at birth.

There are many jobs.  And guess what?  If you don't have a job, there's unemployment.  Technically, she could of filed for "hostile workplace conditions".  (Which, to me, would be the more natural and really legitimate way to do things).

Right now your job description is a job description and you must do those duties.  When you morally become incapable of those duties, you have to find a new job.  If someone converted to Islam and worked at a deli the manager would be under obligation to create an environment in which the employee was comfortable.  This could mean that the job changed, pay changed (a good manager would not demote unless utterly needed).

The real travesty is there's no one who seems to be managing this woman.  No one who who could say, X was your job, but it requires you to do something against your beliefs.  Suzie in accounting and you earn the same, and you have similar skills.  From now on you will to Y and Suzie will do your job.

I don't think we are discussing the same thing here. I'm speaking of judgment in terms of the state of her soul, not as far as how the public views her suitability or appropriateness in serving the public in the marriage license department.

While I think some people are judging her soul, I think at face value most people are simply saying she's being a hypocrate.  Then the retort is "she's saved you can't judge her for past sins".  The first issue with this is that people are saying "can't" and not "shouldn't" and, in this situation, there's a measure of relevance to those sins and her current stance.

 

[Gabriela]

Are we saying St. Augustine of Hippo should have refrained from condemning sexual immorality since he had, before his conversion, engaged in it?

Or should he only have said, "Since I engaged heavily in that sin myself before my conversion, I must resign my post"?

Or maybe: "Since I was sexually immoral before my conversion, I will just stay silent on this issue"?

There's a principle in the Talmud that states that once a person has converted to Judaism, their previous life is not to be mentioned. It's never even to be brought up, much less held against them in any way. I think Christians would do well to observe this, too.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Gabriela

[hotpink]

Are we saying St. Augustine of Hippo should have refrained from condemning sexual immorality since he had, before his conversion, engaged in it?

Or should he only have said, "Since I engaged heavily in that sin myself before my conversion, I must resign my post"?

Or maybe: "Since I was sexually immoral before my conversion, I will just stay silent on this issue"?

There's a principle in the Talmud that states that once a person has converted to Judaism, their previous life is not to be mentioned. It's never even to be brought up, much less held against them in any way. I think Christians would do well to observe this, too.

1) The church is not civil authority nor it is simply a means to employment.  I think that it would be more like St. Augustine being the Chaplin to a brothel that he frequented.  Sometimes, our sins do impact us in a public way.  It doesn't mean that he can't preach on the issue, just that he will have places that his previous sin stop him from doing.

 

2) That's great that their previous life is not mentioned but even if Christians followed this, we're in a world of more than just Christians and Jews.  Plus, as I've mentioned above, just because you can doesn't mean you should.  We should always work to put ourselves in situations which we would be charitable.  Given the clerk's background there was already a chance she'd have trouble being charitable to others who she would view as "sinning".  Great, lets not bring it up.  But in that case, I'd ask people be to be wise in what they choose.  Would you really want an embezzler--no matter how "redeemed"--to handle your finances or even to give financial advice?  It would be wise for an embezzler to stay out of the money markets, even if he never handled a cent.

[CrossCuT]

I believe her contempt hearing is happening right now. Started at 11am EST. There is a reporter tweeting updates you can read here:

 

https://twitter.com/rylandky

[Guest]

 

 

By Jonathan H. Adler September 2 

 

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Ky.,refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because she believes same-sex marriage is immoral. According to Davis, her religious convictions prevent her from issuing the license: “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.”

 

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear ordered all county clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but Davis refused. A federal district court ordered her to comply and issue such licenses, and she still refused. She sought relief in federal court, and even sought relief from the Supreme Court, but to no avail. She now risks contempt.

 

No justice publicly dissented from the Supreme Court’s denial of Davis’s plea for relief, and this was not surprising. The law on this point is clear. Davis cites her religious conscience as the excuse for her intransigence, but she is wrong to do so.  That’s not only my view, but the view of no less than Justice Antonin Scalia.

 

Davis has a right to observe and adhere to her religious beliefs, but she does not have a right to her job as county clerk. The latter obligates her to follow federal law, including the applicable judgments of federal courts, and it is now the law of the land that the Constitution bars state governments from refusing to recognize same-sex marriages on equal terms with opposite-sex marriages. If, as Davis claims, her religious convictions bar her from issuing such a marriage license, she should resign.

 

Now Scalia has not, to my knowledge, said anything directly about Davis’s actions, but he has addressed the question of what public officials should do when their official obligations conflict with their religious conscience. Writing in “First Things” in 2002, Scalia explained that if he were to conclude that the death penalty is fundamentally immoral, he should no longer serve on the bench.

 

Whille my views on the morality of the death penalty have nothing to do with how I vote as a judge, they have a lot to do with whether I can or should be a judge at all. To put the point in the blunt terms employed by Justice Harold Blackmun towards the end of his career on the bench, when he announced that he would henceforth vote (as Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall had previously done) to overturn all death sentences, when I sit on a Court that reviews and affirms capital convictions, I am part of “the machinery of death.” My vote, when joined with at least four others, is, in most cases, the last step that permits an execution to proceed. I could not take part in that process if I believed what was being done to be immoral. . . .

 

In my view the choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own. Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penalty” and if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do.

 

Davis is in a similar position. Her official position obligates her to take part in the state’s licensing and recognition of marriages. Insofar as the state’s definition of an acceptable marriage differs from her own, Davis is obligated to follow the state’s rule so long as she maintains her current office.

 

Think of it this way. Someone who objects to war due to his religious conscience has a right to be a conscientious objector and not serve in the military, even were there to be a draft. But he does not have the right to serve as a military officer, draw a paycheck from the military and then substitute his own personal views of when war is justified for that of the government. The same applies here.

 

If Davis believes the government’s definition of marriage is fundamentally immoral and contrary to her religious convictions, she should remove her self from the state’s machinery of marriage. That she has every right to do. What she does not have the right to do, however, is serve as a government official and fail to fulfill the obligations that come with that office.

 

UPDATE: Some readers object to the title of this post on the grounds that Justice Scalia’s 2002 essay was not addressed to Kim Davis or the current controversy over same-sex marriage.  Indeed, it would be hard for Scalia to have addressed this controversy in 2002.  But the Scalia essay nonetheless “explains why” Davis should comply with the law or resign.  This is because it explains why public officials should either fulfill their public obligations under the law or, should they feel precluded from fulfilling their obligations due to religious objections, resign from their position. That is the question Scalia addressed in 2002, and that is the question raised by Davis’s appeal to religious conscience today. For that reason, I stand by the headline, with one modification. As originally posted, it read “Justice Scalia explains why Kim Davis should issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or find a new job.” I’ve revised it to put it in the past tense. Otherwise, I stand by the headline.

 

Jonathan H. Adler teaches courses in constitutional, administrative, and environmental law at the Case Western University School of Law, where he is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation.

 

 

 

Ordered to jail.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Guest

[KnightofChrist]

No one is forcing her to keep this job.  No one forces a Dr to remain an OBGYN.  Considering the regulation of the healthcare market today and so many natropaths and legitimate dr's who do stupid and dangerous things.  If a Dr. continued employment with a office that did abortions, that's their own fault.  This is not 1900's Russia or China.  We're not assigned jobs at birth.

There are many jobs.  And guess what?  If you don't have a job, there's unemployment.  Technically, she could of filed for "hostile workplace conditions".  (Which, to me, would be the more natural and really legitimate way to do things).

Right now your job description is a job description and you must do those duties.  When you morally become incapable of those duties, you have to find a new job.  If someone converted to Islam and worked at a deli the manager would be under obligation to create an environment in which the employee was comfortable.  This could mean that the job changed, pay changed (a good manager would not demote unless utterly needed).

The real travesty is there's no one who seems to be managing this woman.  No one who who could say, X was your job, but it requires you to do something against your beliefs.  Suzie in accounting and you earn the same, and you have similar skills.  From now on you will to Y and Suzie will do your job.

I am not surprised by your fascist position, which is effectively summed up as faithful Christians cannot serve as Clerks of Court. You took four paragraphs to say what could have taken just one sentence. Faithful Christians cannot serve as Clerks of Court. Before long it will be no faithful Christian can serve in government period. Only Christians who sell out or betray Christ and bow to anti-christian positions of the day will be allowed to serve in Government.

A better ananlogy would be a doctor who works for a hospital or clinic that says all doctors must perform abortions. The doctor can refuse and get fired, or the doctor can quit and find a job elsewhere. 

Or in a world of true tolerance the doctor can keep his or her job and not be forced to commit evil.

[Guest]

I think two guys hooking up let alone getting married is disgusting. It's shameful it's legal in this country. Hopefully Jesus returns soon. Only He can stop the insanity.

[hotpink]

I am not surprised by your fascist position, which is effectively summed up as faithful Christians cannot serve as Clerks of Court. You took four paragraphs to say what could have taken just one sentence. Faithful Christians cannot serve as Clerks of Court. Before long it will be no faithful Christian can serve in government period. Only Christians who sell out or betray Christ and bow to anti-christian positions of the day will be allowed to serve in Government.

Or in a world of true tolerance the doctor can keep his or her job and not be forced to commit evil.

I never said that.  I said that this person was not a good candidate to "die on the hill".

A county clerk is not exactly a political leader, and we should have more political leaders with a conscience.  However, if you believe that marijuana should be legal, as one adept cop pointed out on an NPR blurb, you have no right to be a cop in a state where marijuana is a crime if you intend not to carry out that law.

These are public servants.  They are to follow the laws that are handed down.  If they cannot follow the law, they are out.

You know, there are many parts of the country that only believe in Christian marriage and firmly believe that Catholics are not Christians.  Are you, by that, saying that this clerk could deny Catholics if she felt?

Government should be of the people.  The laws have changed.  Put time and energy into changing the law, not protesting job duties.  If you can't do your job duties because they are against your religion then change the freaking law.  Don't break the law to make a point when it's completely unnecessary.

Again the Dr. can "keep" his or her job.  He or she may have to move to a hospital/office that dosn't do that work. 

[KnightofChrist]

I never said that.  I said that this person was not a good candidate to "die on the hill".

A county clerk is not exactly a political leader, and we should have more political leaders with a conscience.  However, if you believe that marijuana should be legal, as one adept cop pointed out on an NPR blurb, you have no right to be a cop in a state where marijuana is a crime if you intend not to carry out that law.

These are public servants.  They are to follow the laws that are handed down.  If they cannot follow the law, they are out.

You know, there are many parts of the country that only believe in Christian marriage and firmly believe that Catholics are not Christians.  Are you, by that, saying that this clerk could deny Catholics if she felt?

Government should be of the people.  The laws have changed.  Put time and energy into changing the law, not protesting job duties.  If you can't do your job duties because they are against your religion then change the freaking law.  Don't break the law to make a point when it's completely unnecessary.

Again the Dr. can "keep" his or her job.  He or she may have to move to a hospital/office that dosn't do that work. 

Yes, indeed you did, and you did again I put it in bold this time. Anyway, fascists rejoice she's been locked up.

[KnightofChrist]

I never said that.  I said that this person was not a good candidate to "die on the hill".

A county clerk is not exactly a political leader, and we should have more political leaders with a conscience.  However, if you believe that marijuana should be legal, as one adept cop pointed out on an NPR blurb, you have no right to be a cop in a state where marijuana is a crime if you intend not to carry out that law.

These are public servants.  They are to follow the laws that are handed down.  If they cannot follow the law, they are out.

You know, there are many parts of the country that only believe in Christian marriage and firmly believe that Catholics are not Christians.  Are you, by that, saying that this clerk could deny Catholics if she felt?

Government should be of the people.  The laws have changed.  Put time and energy into changing the law, not protesting job duties.  If you can't do your job duties because they are against your religion then change the freaking law.  Don't break the law to make a point when it's completely unnecessary.

Again the Dr. can "keep" his or her job.  He or she may have to move to a hospital/office that dosn't do that work. 

Yes, indeed you did, and you did again I put it in bold this time. Anyway, fascists rejoice she's been locked up.

[franciscanheart]

We can't judge this woman for her past, we can wish her the very best with her future and continued journey of faith.

That said, even if we repent and receive forgiveness for the sins we commit, it doesn't always blot out future consequences. She may be forgiven and given the benefit of the doubt on her past within the Christian community, but the reality is, she will still have her past held against her in the general public. Again we shouldn't judge her, but to a certain extent I can understand why people would take issue with it.

I admire her willingness to stand up as a witness to her faith, but I don't think this will end well. I'm not sure what else to say at this point.

Standing up for her faith is one thing. But I think she should also probably resign. THAT would be a bold move in faith -- to trust that the Lord will provide.

[hotpink]

Yes, indeed you did, and you did again I put it in bold this time. Anyway, fascists rejoice she's been locked up.

I think you're stepping way, way over the line here.  One does not have to be facist to want people to do their jobs, even in laws they do not agree with.  If you freaking can't do part of your job, don't have it.  It has nothing to do with Christianity, it has to do with personal opinion.

Like I said.  There's a cop in X state (I forgot) who is 100% for the decriminalization of marijuana who was interviewed on NPR.  He MUST, by law, arrest people with even a small amount.  Do we really want cops and clerks do be deciding what laws can be enforced and what laws shouldn't?

What she was doing was wrong.  In the private sector she could just be fired and escorted out.  Apparently, you can't do that as county clerk.  Jail is the answer for them?  I guess?

You need to check yourself.  Just because you believe that somehow freedom is being trampled on doesn't mean that you can go around willy-nilly to call people fascists.  That's offensive, and it's not even true.

[Ash Wednesday]

Standing up for her faith is one thing. But I think she should also probably resign. THAT would be a bold move in faith -- to trust that the Lord will provide.

Yeah, if I were in her shoes I would probably reach a point where I'd made a statement -- and then resign and look for work elsewhere. I understand her convictions but part of me also views it as activism that's a day late and a dollar short.