Tag Archives: kim davis

September 5, 2015 · 12:50

Liberty Lies in Our Hearts: Kim Davis & Civil Rights

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Just a short post today, and I do mean that. Yesterday, I promised a short article and a Facebook friend, a lawyer said, “That was short?” I replied that it was like an “Alan Shore closing.” For those who have not seen Boston Leal and watched James Spader play that character you really need to do so; but I digress…

In Boston Legal Alan Shore once quoted Learned Hand, a Federal Judge and judicial philosopher. He said, “Liberty lies in our hearts, and once it dies there, no constitution can save it.”

In light of my last few articles where I waded into the morass of the case of Kim Davis, the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky, who was stupid enough to trust her money grubbing, politically motivated lawyers from Liberty Counsel and is now sitting in jail on contempt of court charges; I need to clarify a couple of things.

First, I feel bad that Mrs. Davis is being used as a pawn and sitting in jail while her lawyers collect all kinds of donations to support their next cause; and that as soon as they can they will jettison her. That is a fact, because these supposedly Christian legal groups are known for this. They take a case, promise the moon, usually lose and they abandon the person they represent after they have milked the case for every penny they can get. Sadly, other than their fifteen minutes of fame most of the clients get nothing for their efforts. Mrs. Davis is paying the price for that. She is going to be in jail at least a week while her lawyers try to appeal something that there is no precedent to appeal and which has not hope of succeeding. During the time they will make still more money. The truth is to get out of jail Mrs. Davis can find a way to do her job without violating her conscience, or she can resign and allow another to do it. However, when you, like Mrs. Davis, occupy an elected office that pays $80,000 a year in a county where the per capita income is well under $20,000; an office that your mother held for 37 years prior to you taking it less than a year ago; that can be tough.

Second, I cherish the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and my philosophy of life, professional and private is guided by the premise found in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….”

That my friends is the essence of civil rights, and for that matter the foundation to protect religious rights of all people as well. Those rights are for all, not just Christians; and it is incumbent on elected and appointed officials of the government to follow the law in order to secure those rights for their fellow citizens. If they cannot they should not hold office. People can believe whatever they want. They can believe in any God, they can believe in any secular philosophy, they can hold any political ideology, they can believe that those who do not believe like them are going to hell or whatever; but when they swear to uphold the laws of the land in a public office where they are required to secure the freedom of others by serving them in accordance with the law; they have to either find a way to reconcile their personal beliefs or resign their office.

In fact I have for over 32 years as a commissioned officer in the United States military have had to do that. If by some chance this lands me in someone’s hell, or if indeed God is that petty, vindictive and capricious as to send me to hell for following the law of the land; then I will deal with that during my eternal vacation on the Lake of Fire. But I will not allow fear of what might happen to me in eternity to interfere with safeguarding the rights of the people in my care. My God is certainly big enough, loving enough, and gracious enough to deal with that; otherwise there would not be explicit commands in the Bible to obey the government.

A final thought and clarification on the rules for commenting on this site:

I welcome comments, especially from people who do not agree with me. I get many comments on my articles from different people and welcome comments, especially from people who do not agree with me. As long as they stay on point and are civil I enjoy them.

I have one man who frequently disagrees with me on my views of the Civil War, Reconstruction and Civil Rights. He is an honest man and pretty intelligent. He keeps his comments in line with the subject of the articles in question. He does not venture into tangents that have little to do with the articles in question. Likewise, even when he strongly disagrees he is polite and respectful. We do not agree on much, but I think that we could be friends and I welcome those kinds of comments.

Then I have other commentators. Sadly, most of these people are conservative Christians. These people seldom deal with the article itself, but decide use this site as their forum to promote or defend their denomination or their theology; most of the time in the most crude, ignorant and condescending manner possible.

As of today, I will not allow the comments of people who do not stay on point with the article, attempt to hijack this site as their forum; or who treat me with contempt. As of today I will simply disapprove those comments. If a person wants to comment they can deal with the article, if not I welcome them to start their own blog where they can spew their ignorance at will. But I will not give such people a forum ever again. I don’t have time and as much as I love bacon and pulled pork barbeque, I refuse to cast my pearls before swine.

So I am off to the Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire concert tonight. Was that short enough?

Have a great day,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 4, 2015 · 15:24

Kim Davis, Religious Liberty & Civil Rights

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Kim Davis: A Martyr for Tyranny and Intolerance

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am just a putting up a quick and hopefully provocative note to end this workweek before I go with Judy to spend some time with friends over a few cold beers. I waded in to the Kim Davis-Gay Marriage controversy knowing that anything that I said would be controversial. Especially when I dared to directly confront the issue and throw the bullshit flag on her, her lawyers, and the political hacks that support her.

She is not a new Rosa Parks, for Rosa only wanted a seat on the bus, not to kick people off of the bus. She is not a new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for he only sought to ensure that blacks had unimpeded civil rights and voting rights. In that she is much more like George Wallace, or Governor Ross Barnett who defied a Federal order to allow James Meredith, a black man to attend Ole Miss in 1962. Governor Barnett’s stand led to violence and attacks on Federal Marshals and his supporters wanted nothing less than to reignite the Civil War. If you want to read a great book about that incident read Walter Lord’s classic The Past that Would Not Die. 

Likewise Davis is not like a Jewish victim of the Third Reich, for Hitler’s argument against the Jews was over his view that the Jews were a race; thus even Jews who had converted to Christianity were still considered Jews by Hitler. In fact she was not fired for her race, but for failing to obey a law that she disagreed with, or to fail to serve someone she despised. That is something that the Jews of Germany never got to do. As a historian who spent the majority of his undergraduate and graduate work studying Weimar and the Third Reich, I know a bit more about this than Davis’s hack lawyer Mat Staver, who raised this specter yesterday.

There are all kinds of things that Mrs. Davis is not; and civil rights martyr is not one of them. She is much more like the county clerks of the Jim Crow era who denied civil rights to blacks than she is Rosa Parks, or for that matter, any other real champion of civil rights. She is a champion of her right to discriminate based on her religious beliefs; she is a martyr for the cause of religious tyranny and oppression. For two months she has refused to carry out the law. She has refused to honor people’s civil rights, or even to allow her employees to do that. That is the issue. If a Moslem clerk refused a Christian a marriage license would she or her supporters back them? Of course not; that would be Christian persecution, but when Christians do it to Gays, that is freedom of religion.

I have begun reading a fascinating book by the late Richard Hofstadter, a remarkable historian who studied American politics. The book I am reading is The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays that he wrote not long after Barry Goldwater’s abortive presidential campaign. In the book Hofstadter wrote concerning that movement words which are incredibly accurate when looking at today’s so-called religious-conservatives, or more correctly called the Christian Right. Goldwater, who Hofstadter critiqued fairly harshly said a number of things that those who claim to be conservatives should pay attention to or doom them and their cause to irrelevance. Sadly Hofstadter died well before Goldwater had his epiphany regarding the Regarding the Christian Right he said:

“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’ ” Barry Goldwater 
(1909-1998) US Senator (R-Arizona) Source: Congressional Record, September 16, 1981

Goldwater later explained his understanding of religious tolerance and compromise that was the core of American civil religion versus the intense sectarianism embodied by the Christian Right:

“Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution.  We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution.  We treasure the freedoms that document protects… “By maintaining the separation of church and state,” he explained, “the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars… Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers?  Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?” 

He also said something that is coming true today: “Well, I’ve spent quite a number of years carrying the flag of the ‘Old Conservatism.’  And I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics.  The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength.” 

Hofstadter wrote about the dualism and lack of ability to compromise embodied by such people:

“As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”

Davis and her supporters fit this to a tee. Compromise is hateful to them and victory must be total or it is not satisfying. Compromise and partial success reinforces the powerlessness they feel. That is why today, in the wake of the ruling of a judge appointed by George W. Bush, they are apoplectic because they know that they will soon be yesterday’s news.

I will write more about this soon, and probably re-write some older articles on the subject to reinforce my point. For those who think I am anti-Christian or want to crush religious liberty, instead I want to preserve it for all, not just a few.

So tonight I wish you peace, love, and good craft beer,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 3, 2015 · 16:30

The YUCK Factor: Religious Freedom & Kim Davis

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am getting so tired of people who decide that their religious freedom trumps everyone else’s freedoms as well as the law. The example of the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky, Mrs. Kim Davis provides us a shining example of this from the Christian side of the house; and I can only say YUCK! So today I am taking a certain amount of delight that she is now in jail, the German word for my feeling of joy is schadenfreude. It’s a great word that we don’t use often enough.

I cannot speak authoritatively about non-Christians who decide that they can disobey law based on their religious freedom, and frankly I haven’t heard about too many of those cases;. However, as a Christian, a historian, a theologian, and a military officer charged with upholding the law; I can comment on Christians who decide to disobey the law in the name of their faith.

Freedom of religion is the most abused freedom that we have in this country. For the most part it is we can blame politically powerful conservative Christians abusing it. For them their religious freedom is a constitutional absolute which allows them to pick and choose what laws they do not want to obey; of course should a Moslem public official attempt this these same people will scream about Moslems trying to impose Sharia law on non-Moslems.

The fact that there are thousands of Christian denominations and split offs makes this messy. It is messy because while most of these Christians claim to believe in Jesus and the Bible, most cannot agree on any doctrine; except that they hate Gays. Other than that there is there is almost no consensus of belief. American Christianity is a pick-and-choose smorgasbord of beliefs, in which the individual’s right to choose what they want to believe about God is now spilling out of the church, and over into society at large. They chose what laws they will obey, and the religious beliefs that they want the government to enforce against others based on their “sincerely held religious views.” 

To that I say YUCK! As Attorney Alan Shore played by James Spader said in Boston Legal “Enough with this freedom of religion crap. Yuck. Yuck, yuck.”

But this is the latest “in-thing” for Christian bullies to do. In fact, the failing Presidential Candidate and seminary drop-out Mike Huckabee, got in on the act today. He commended Mrs. Davis today, saying that he called her and “let her know how proud I am of her for not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for religious liberty…” Likewise Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are conniving to find a way to legislate ways for Christians to do this, while forgetting the legal precedent that would allow others to do the same in the name of their religion, and they will cry foul when a Moslem uses that precedent.

The fact is that this pompous attempt to make Evangelical Christianity a State Religion, is positively abusive toward all other citizens.  To be fair the attempts by Mrs. Davis and her political and legal supports needs to be called out by Christians, if we want to be taken seriously. If we don’t we as will denigrate our witness in the community and if the time ever comes, will forfeit our rights if someone wants to use the legal precedent that we set against us.

Dr. Mark Silk, Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college’s Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, calls this “Spiritual Libertarianism” and it is dangerous both to society, as well as the church. Or should I say churches, since given the chance and the backing of the government, a big church with the majority of adherents in an area will always oppress smaller churches, non-Christian religions and unbelievers. Since I have written a lot about this facet of religious liberty I will not go into that in depth here. Just put “religious liberty” or “freedom of religion” in the little search box on this site, and you will see my long list of articles on the subject, most dealing with our religious history.

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But I digress… These people, including the Recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, Mrs. Kim Davis, all claim to be obey the Bible, but they totally ignore other parts of the Bible. Jesus said to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” and the Apostle Paul commanded Christians in his letter to the Romans, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

So, this absolute right that Davis and so many others a championing is overplayed and dangerous. To quote attorney Alan Shore:

“Ugh, please. It’s a dumb freedom….And I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little tired of this freedom of religion thing. When did religion get such a good name, anyway? Be it the Crusades, the Reformation genocides, the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, mass slaughters supposedly in the name of Allah, and then, of course, the obligatory reciprocal retribution. Hundreds of millions of people have died in religious conflicts. Hitler did his business in the name of his Creator. 9/11 was an act of religious extremism. It’s our greatest threat today—a Holy Jihad. If we’re not ready to strip religion of its sacred cow status, how ‘bout we at least scale back a little on the constitutional dogma exalting it as all get-out?” (Boston Legal “Whose God is it Anyway” Season 3 episode 5)

I am beginning to believe, like Alan Shore that religious freedom is a dumb freedom. This is not because I do not value it, but because it is so abused by people who want to establish a theocracy. This is something that our founders and even influential religious leaders of their day, did their best to avoid.

The fact is that these true believers, like Mrs. Davis, who desire to have their religious beliefs exalted over law and the rights of others are dangerous. Eric Hoffer wrote, that true believers, especially the religious type were likely to see themselves as “as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish.”

People are looking for something different than this and they are fleeing the church in droves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945 wrote something about German Christians of his time that more American Christians should take to heart:

“Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God, either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God, too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there will be nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words… never really speaking to others.”

Christians no longer have a good name in this country because we act like we are better than everyone else. What Mrs. Davis and her supporters are doing is to make that even worse. A pox on them.

Davis told Fox News before the ruling, “This is a heaven or hell issue for me and for every other Christian that believes…This is a fight worth fighting.” In other words, she is a Christian that believes and Christians who do not agree with her are not.

If you wonder why people are fleeing Christianity look no farther than Mrs. Davis’s and her supporters. Their perverted and insidiously malignant “Christianity” is the cause of this. As I said yesterday by the standards of Christian orthodoxy she is not even a Christian based on her beliefs about the Godhead. In Calvin’s Geneva and almost all countries with state churches in Europe, as well as the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she would have been burned at the stake for her beliefs; beliefs that she now presumes to hold as the standard for all other people. Basically, she has just had the nerve to say, in so many words, that the rest of us are going to hell. Of course in Jesus Name, Amen.

As to the ruling of Federal District Judge David Bunning which sent Mrs. Davis to jail until she complies with the law: it also requires her deputies to carry out their duties and authorizing county judges to issue marriage licenses. Five of the six deputies have agreed to follow the law. 

Now the Kentucky legislature which has tried to avoid the issue, and to kick the can down the road until next year might actually have to get off their asses and do something to amend their laws regarding marriage as well as what officials can issue a marriage certificate. That is if they want Mrs. Davis to keep her job and get out of jail before the next legislative session in 2016.

Davis and her followers, including the crass politicians trying to carve out exemptions for people like her to disobey the law have poisoned the water for anyone wanting to actually be a positive influence on society as Christians, and I include conservative “pro-life” Christians, as well as progressive Christians who advocate a more inclusive faith and relationship to society.

But, as more people flee the church and the Christian faith, the leaders of this movement to impose Christian beliefs on others through the power of the state, will have no one else to blame. They are the cause of this. The Barna group did a scientific survey of the attitudes of 18-29 year-olds on what phrases best described Christians. The top answers were “Anti-homosexual, judgmental, hypocritical and too involved in politics.” This view was held by 91% of non-Christians and a staggering 80% of young churchgoers. Another Barna survey mentioned Hypocritical, anti-homosexual, insincere, sheltered and too political. Another Barna survey of Evangelical Christians of the same demographic found that they believed that, “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” while 20% said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” while 22% said that “church is like a country club, only for insiders” and 36% said that they were unable “to ask my most pressing life questions in church.” 

As for now I am glad that she is in jail. The sad thing for her though is that the people who helped get her to jail at Liberty Counsel, will jettison her as soon as they can no longer make money off of her cause; and that will not be very long from now. They will move along and find some other dupe to do their bidding. By dupe, I do not mean a devout Christian, but rather one stupid enough to trust the judgement of politically motivated lawyers like Liberty Counsel who get them tossed in jail, and pocket vast amounts of money for their next legal crusade.

But then there seems to be an unending supply of dupes who think they are doing God’s will, and sadly, not just in this country. The Middle East is full of them.

God help us all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 2, 2015 · 15:18

Heaven, Hell, Homosexuals & Kim Davis: The Pandora’s Box of Political Religion

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Kim Davis Greeting Supporters (above) Her Pastor Below

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Kim Davis, the recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky has now decided that the reason that she cannot issue marriage licenses to Gays is that it is a heaven or hell decision, in other words, if she complies with the court order she will quite possibly go to hell. Actually as a theologian and historian I find this fascinating, and regardless of what happens next in this sorry saga, we must remember the words of Captain Jean Luc Picard “But she, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness….”

Davis, who was elected to the office last November, following her mother who held the office for the 37 years prior, makes $80,000 a year to serve as the Country Clerk and one of her big duties is issuing marriage licenses to citizens of the county. The only problem is that Marriage Equality is the law and gays are entitled to the full rights of all citizens based on a Supreme Court ruling which said that based on the 14th Amendment that Gays, like all other American Citizens were legally entitled to the same rights as all other citizens. Likewise it appealed to the Civil Rights Act of 1965. By refusing the recalcitrant County Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky is in violation of the law. However, because she is an elected official she cannot be fired. She can only be impeached by a state legislature whose members need the votes of her supporters in the state. 

Mrs. Davis is an Apostolic Pentecostal Christian. Her Church, Morehead First Apostolic Church belongs to the United Pentecostal Church International. This denomination is one of the early Pentecostal denominations in the United States, founded in 1905 during the Pentecostal Awakening. It split from another Pentecostal denomination, the Assemblies of God over the issue of the Godhead. The United Pentecostals reject the traditional understanding of Trinitarian Christianity. Their theology is Monotheistic and they interpret the references to Father, Son and Holy as modes in which God reveals himself. In other words, God was the Father, and then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit.

According to mainstream Christianity since the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. the theology of the United Pentecostals was considered heretical, by all Eastern and Western branches of Christianity. This means, and I hate to be a theological hard ass here, but technically, they are not Christian, because they worship a different God. Now personally, I am not such a hard ass and believe that God forgives a lot of bad theology, even my own; but the United Pentecostals don’t, and here is where it gets really interesting.

The United Pentecostal Church believes that in order for a person to be “saved” that they must first repent of their sins. No problem there, I think repentance is a good thing. Next one must be baptized, and here is where it gets tricky. If you are not baptized “In Jesus’ Name” your baptism doesn’t count. Sorry all you folks that were baptized “in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” you may have repented but you are not saved and yes you are heading for that eternal vacation on the Lake of Fire, so don’t forget your asbestos water skis.

But that’s not all my friends; to Kim Davis and the United Pentecostals you must also be baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of Speaking in Tongues. If not, by their doctrine you are going to hell, and don’t forget to go to bathroom first because it is “damnation without relief” and if you do not go it will be a very uncomfortable eternity. But wait there’s still more…. Even if you a member of these churches, like Kim Davis is and you make it through those first three gates, you can still go to hell; you have to Persevere to the End, that means that she must wear those frumpy clothes, no makeup or jewelry, and avoid doing sinful things and that is kind of tricky because there are so many ways to screw up. No wonder she is afraid of going to hell for doing the duties required by the law.

I find it fascinating that Mrs. Davis and her supporters are so hell bent on making sure that homosexuals cannot get married, or enjoy the same rights as other citizens and condemn homosexuals all to hell based on their interpretation of the Bible. Interestingly enough many of her big supporters are Trinitarian Evangelicals and other Conservative Christians, who by doctrine Kim Davis and the United Pentecostal Church does not consider Christians.

This is the fascinating part. Her biggest defenders and her lawyers are all Trinitarian Christians who Kim Davis and her church believe are going to hell, at least which is what their doctrine says, and these wonderful Trinitarian Christians are so full of animosity to homosexuals that they will defend a person who believes that they too are going to hell with those horrible homosexuals. Imagine, if Kim Davis and her church are right, Mat Staver, lawyer from Liberty Counsel will be sunning himself on the banks of the Lake of Fire with the homosexual that he so loathes, and I hope he takes some tanning oil. The irony is rich, but I digress….

You see this is the problem when you decide to let theologically and historically ignorant religious fanatics run government. But that is the morass that conservative Christians in the United States have created for themselves. Ever since the 1970s when Jerry Falwell began the charge the situation has got increasingly stickier with every passing year. Odd alliances are made by groups who all believe that they have to only way to salvation and that all others are going to hell. The problem is that this alliance cannot hold. Should the Religious Right ever get control they will start persecuting each other in the areas that they are strongest, because it is an alliance of convenience and in their hearts they despise each other almost as much as they do the gays. It will Balkanize and fracture our society beyond belief; but then who cares so long as our religion wins.

Robert Heinlien observed, “Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.” That is what Davis and her backers want, if they cannot stop the law they want legal authority to disobey it while getting paid to administer it as government officials.

Is it no wonder that James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others of our founding fathers were so adamant about separating church and state? Madison said why this is so necessary, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.” And why Conservative Atheist Christopher Hitchens remarked “How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”

Mrs. Davis can hold whatever religious views that she desires, and she can chose to worship the God of her choice and take her chances on landing in hell or heaven. However, her duties as an officer of the government require her to carry out the law. If she cannot carry out the law her choice is to resign. She has no right to be paid by the government and then substitute her religious beliefs for law she is to carry out, and thereby sabotage the law, which is meant for all citizens. Since she is unlikely to resign, cannot be fired, and most likely will not be impeached, there is no remedy for the citizens of Rowan County, none of who are able to get a marriage license. It reminds me of the days when White officials in the South defied Congress and the Courts to defend Jim Crow Laws in the 1959s and 1960s. 

Let’s turn this around for a second and put Mrs. Davis standing at the counter trying to get a marriage license following one of her three divorces. Imagine how Mrs. Davis would have felt if some hard-assed Trinitarian Catholic Christian denied her application for a marriage license due to her three divorces, and his belief that divorce was a mortal sin and that to issue a marriage license violated his religious beliefs.

That my friends is the path that Mrs. Davis and her supporters are taking us down. It is the path where a personal belief trumps the law, and one’s duty as an officer of the government to carry out that law.

Mrs. Davis needs to resign, or face the consequences. She will be considered a martyr for a cause by people who she, if she actually believes the teachings of her church, are going to go to hell alongside of the homosexuals that they are defending her from. I love that irony, and since Davis and many of her supporters would probably beleive that I am going to be damned for my support of the civil rights of Gays then I will have to agree with Captain Jean Luc Picard who once said “If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.”

Make it so…

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 1, 2015 · 16:29

In Exclusion of All Others: Kim Davis & God’s Authority

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Thomas Jefferson so eloquently and correctly observed, “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” It appears that we have some Christians stooping to that “lowest grade of ignorance” which Jefferson noted.

I have been holding back on the case of Kim Davis, the Clerk of Rowan County Kentucky who has strenuously refused to issue marriage licenses of Gay couples based on her “strongly held” or “sincere” religious beliefs. After the rule went into effect she has refused to issue marriage licenses to anyone in her county, citing fairness. Personally when this started I thought this was a publicity stunt by the Christian Right, and especially her lawyer, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, the legal activist wing of Liberty University and that it would blow over in a few days.

But then forgot just what a self-righteous bigot and extremist that Staver is when it comes to this issue. He has made a fortune demonizing gays over the years and his words are always extreme, polarizing, and play to the basest prejudices of his audience; angry, politically charged conservative Christians. Yes, in some ways this is still a publicity stunt, because Staver and others like him are using Davis, a woman who according to what Jesus said is an adulteress, having been married four times and divorced three, to make a profit and her a martyr for their cause.

So I was wrong and the circus continues. Davis disobeyed orders from the Governor and Attorney General of Kentucky to comply with the law; she has lost in every court including the entire U.S. Supreme Court. Interestingly enough the conservative Supreme Court Justices who were in the minority in the Obergfell v. Hodges case which legalized Marriage Equality; Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas, refused to hear her case and summarily dismissed her appeal. But she still continues.

Today, after the Supreme Court ruling Davis still refuses to obey the law and do the job that by law, and the dictates and responsibilities of the government office she occupies that she is supposed to do. Citing “God’s authority” for her refusal, Davis has again refused to issue marriage licenses. The fact is that she is denying the rights of every couple in Rowan County to a marriage license is of no concern. The fact that if you swear an oath as a public official to uphold the law, likewise, is of no concern to her. All that matters are her rights, not the people she swore an oath to serve, not the law.

It is being framed by Davis, Staver and their allies as s test of religious liberty, in that Mrs. Davis cannot in good conscience issue a marriage license to a Gay couple because it violates her religious beliefs. I do not disregard those beliefs, I defend the beliefs of people like Mrs. Davis on a daily basis. I do not agree with her but I agree that she can believe whatever she wants. But there is an important caviot to this, Mrs. Davis is not a private citizen. She is an officer of the government who has certain legal responsibilities, among them issuing marriage licenses to eligible people in Rowan County, Kentucky. She took an oath to carry out the laws of the State of Kentucky, and she is not doing that. If she does not to comply she needs to resign or face the legal consequences of her actions.  No officer of the government at any level gets to chose what laws they will obey and which they will not. Her actions violate the 14th Amendment rights of all her citizens, as such they are unconstitutional. This is not like abortion where many medical professionals can opt out of based on a conscience clause. In those cases those physicians refer to others. In this case, which is qualitatively different that abortion, in that it does not involve life or potential life, Mrs. Davis gives the people of her county no option. She is the only one who can issue these licenses and she refuses to do so.

The reality is that no one is forcing Mrs. Davis to change her opinion on Gay marriage. She can do that as a private citizen and in her church, but she cannot use her beliefs to deny the legal rights of others. To allow her to do so would set a dangerous precedent, but it seems neither Davis, her lawyers, or many conservative Christian state and local politicians and activists understand this. Once you set the precedent that a public official can use their religious rights to deny the rights of others you open Pandora’s Box. Our founders understood, that, James Madison correctly observed, “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?”

Can you imagine what Staver’s reaction if a fundamentalist Moslem County clerk decided to not issue a marriage license to a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or an unbeliever of any kind? You can bet that he would not be defending that Moslem’s right to disobey the law. Instead, he would be apoplectic and claiming that the Moslems were attempting to impose Sharia on non-Moslems would be demanding that the official comply with the law or go to jail.

What if an Orthodox Jewish elected official refused to work alongside or in the same office as a Christian woman? Would Staver defend him? I think not.

But that is the problem here. Davis and so many others like her believe that their sincerely held beliefs trump the law, and their sworn duty as public officials. My friends, to allow that is to open the way for a theocracy, where in the name of God and the church, the rights of non-believers are disregarded. Sadly, it goes beyond simply refusing rights, but it ends up in religious tyranny and persecution; “witch trials,” the killing of “heretics and unbelievers.” In fact as far as Gays are concerned, there are militant Christian proponents of theocracy in this country who openly state that Gays should be killed, and they are not limited to the fringe of the late Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church. Some of them are frequent speakers at Republican campaign rallies, Tea Party events and court major conservative political leaders and candidates for office.

Barry Goldwater of all people warned us about them as early as 1981, “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

As much as we want to believe differently, we are not nearly as civilized or tolerant as we claim to be; and the words in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” only apply to a certain in group; in Davis’ and Staver’s case, Christians. All others, especially Gays, need not apply. Believe me, while people like Davis and Staver are a minority they are benign. Their words and their actions demonstrate that. Like the Nazis of the 1920s they claim to be the victims and decry laws that do not allow them to discriminate. Should they ever gain the reins of power, or more likely, succeed in carving out exemptions in the law that allow them to discriminate against others based on their personal, strongly held religious beliefs; they will become tyrannical, and Davis, even without a shred of law to back her up is behaving as a tyrant, and being applauded by many so-called Christians.

That is something to ponder.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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