What’s Wrong with the World

"Kim Davis may have rightly recognized the call to action for herself, and we should support her."

I disagree that we have an obligation to support anyone in following their private revelations. I will support her in that only if I get my own convincing private revelation that I should do so.

Otherwise, we should support her only in refusing to render to Caesar the things that are God's, as that is decidedly a public revelation. Do you believe that Kentucky marriage licenses belong to God rather than Caesar?

Civil disobedience is *almost always* a matter of a judgement call, because usually one has some option--quitting a job, for example, or closing one's business--that does not directly affirm or abet evil but that is non-defiant. Again and again we see, and we will see many more, such situations. A Christian school _can_ close its doors if that is the alternative they are given to hiring homosexual professors. I certainly think they should close up shop _before_ hiring homosexual professors. But a third alternative is to keep their doors open, hire lawyers, and attempt to use existing precedents and laws concerning freedom of conscience and/or religion to fight. This latter option is certainly worth supporting even if not strictly mandatory.

By your reasoning, we should treat all such decisions as unworthy of our support absent a personal, private revelation. I call baloney on that. That is like saying that, because not every man *has* to man the walls in a fight with a vicious enemy (some, for example, may be better used staying with the women and children as a rear guard) we shouldn't cheer for those who choose to man the walls.

I see no reason why the default position should be, "Don't support the person who engages in civil disobedience." On the contrary. My decision to support Davis verbally is based upon considerations like the nobility of her cause, the nature of her action, the evil of what is being enjoined upon her, and the excellent consequences that would follow of a lot more people in her position emulated her decision.

I would say the same of a doctor in one of the jurisdictions around the world (in Victoria, Australia, for example) who *remained a doctor* while refusing to refer for abortions or do them. Yes, he could just get out of the medical profession, but if he doesn't, while also refusing to do evil, I cheer for him. It seems obvious that I should. No private revelation to me is necessary.

What Kim Davis is refusing to do is to lie about the nature of marriage. One doesn't even have to call that "God's." Natural marriage and civil marriage themselves have an essence, and she's not going to tell lies about it and pretend that two men or two women can be married in any meaningful sense of the word. She is refusing to cooperate in postmodernism and insanity. That is publically available information. She is refusing to render to Caesar the right to compel insanity and lies about the nature of reality. And good for her.

--Is she right to issue no licenses?

Presumably, she originally did this in the hopes of avoiding discrimination charges, as she never before had any objection to issuing licenses for normal marriages. At this point that part of it seems kind of pointless. However, that leads to...

--Would she be in any more legal trouble if she issued marriage licenses for normal couples but "discriminated" against homsexual couples?

I don't know. If not, then she should issue them to normal couples. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, and everyone knows her motivation. If so, then her blanket refusal is more understandable. That is a question for someone who knows the relevant laws better to answer.

I wonder. Can she use the Thomas More defense? Yes, yes, of course everyone THINKS they know my motivation for refusing to issue licenses. But that's not the law. What everyone thinks they know of my motivation is hearsay or worse, not admissible. Until I tell someone my motivation, under the law YOU DON'T KNOW my motivation. So, for the law, all you can say is that I am not issuing licenses.

Now, maybe that won't work here (it didn't work out so well for More). I am certain that at least 25% of the judges out there would work very hard indeed to ignore that argument and find a basis, or pretend to find a basis, to say that's discrimination. Or just declare it without even a pretense at justification. But until you get the judge, you don't know who you are going to get, and anyway you don't know what God may be working in that judge. Until she know for certain that this will not "work" it is a fair tool in the tool belt.

Can the judge do that?

I suspect that a judge can (or claim to) suppress an explicitly illegal action like posting money to support a conspiracy to a crime by grabbing the money sent. But I doubt it is legal for a judge to simply grab money put into a fund whose object is not EXPLICITLY illegal. It would almost certainly be a difficult argument for a judge to grab money put into a legal defense fund, since EVEN ADMITTED CRIMINALS still get to have attorneys defend their interests in court. In any case, since these donations won't be eligible for tax deductions, there is no reason to explicitly TIE them to "legal defense" or anything like that, you could set up the fund "for sympathy and emotional support for Kim." Or something equally neutral. And if worse came to worse, the fund could have a trustee or whatever who is not obligated to hand over the money to Kim directly, but may apply the money for any purpose on behalf of Kim, including paying her legal bills if the trustee so chooses.

"If that were not the case, civil "marriage" for homosexuals would have literally no meaning. It would exist only in their heads and impose no requirements upon anyone else. To the extent that civil marriage exists at all, it is a requirement of recognition by someone."

...and this exactly why every individual, organization, and church that refuses to recognize same sex relationships as marriages is now on notice. Are same sex "marriage" activists really going to settle for about 50% recognition? Doubtful, in my estimation. How about 70%? Also, doubtful, in my estimation. To get the recognition they seek it seems they will have to go after everyone eventually, if not, they (at best) will probably be stuck with 45-70% recognition.

I wonder. Can she use the Thomas More defense? Yes, yes, of course everyone THINKS they know my motivation for refusing to issue licenses. But that's not the law. What everyone thinks they know of my motivation is hearsay or worse, not admissible. Until I tell someone my motivation, under the law YOU DON'T KNOW my motivation. So, for the law, all you can say is that I am not issuing licenses.

Well, that ship has already sailed. She's told everybody and indeed made it a crucial part of her legal defense that she has a conscientious objection _specifically_ to issuing same-sex licenses. I don't see how she could even try to make a legal case without that, so the More "nobody knows my reasons" approach just isn't available to her, and hasn't been from the beginning.

However, if she were going to be in _more_ trouble if she were to issue some licenses but not others, I obviously support her decision to issue none.

In the immediate term, the point is moot. The judge sent her to jail. Here we go.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/kim-davis-same-sex-marriage.html

I wonder who gets socked with the decision about licenses in that county now?

And I wonder how long she will be in jail. The judge says she'll be released when she agrees to issue the licenses. So, for the rest of her life? Until her elected term of office runs out?

Cynical as it sounds, his jailing her could be the best thing for her, and our, cause. I hope other clerks do the same.

Well according to Drudge they just arrested her. A worthless excuse of a judge held her in contempt of court. Looks like she lost. Then again...

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is on Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners.

Also remember it takes literally one stroke of a pen to reverse this. A president Trump or Cruz could end this persecution day one of his administration. Heck, the Republican Senate could hold up any Iran treaty deal unless 0bama does. We need to no longer argue or reason with the courts; we need to strip them of their power.

Lydia it certainly could be the best thing for her to be jailed, but only if others follow in her courage. They can't jail everyone, and the more local and state officials refuse to go along with the federal judiciary's tyranny the sooner the people will revolt and power will be restored to the states. If this causes more passivity on the part of local officials, then the tactic will have worked in silencing dissent.

Also, and I certainly don't lay the blame at Kim Davis's feet for this, but conservatives need to get have a comprehensive defense of their civil disobedience. The moral reason Mrs. Davis refuses to issue permits to homo couples is because these "relationships" are invalid and sinful according to God's law. But her legal justification, which she never brings up, comes from the fact the state of Kentucky passed a constitutional amendment(by referendum no less) defining marriage as one man and one woman. As a sovereign state, this law is valid regardless of what the Supreme Court says. The Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction in this case per the 10th amendment. End of story. The left can argue with it, and the federal judiciary can demand that they are superior. And they may (and have) convinced a majority of people--cuckolded conservatives included--of this. But it doesn't make it so. In fact it should only delegitimize the role of the federal courts in the minds of conservatives and cause the pendulum to swing the other way.

So the nonsense about "rendering unto Caesar" we hear from cuckolded conservatives isn't even a valid argument in this scenario when you consider the question is: which Caesar? Not only is Kim Davis obeying God, she is actually the only one obeying the law. Are the states sovereign in matters of civil issues like marriage or do 9 unelected Ivy League lawyers get to decide sensitive policy for the republic? Anyone who sides with the latter doesn't deserve a country or our respect.

What she should have done is call for armed volunteers to join her at her home and office, and as an escort. She should have asked for fifty to start (and organize a force to feed and house them when they are not on guard).

If the judge wanted to meet that group with a larger force than a few US Marshals, she would then ask for 100 armed people to maintain her freedom. Also publishing the judges home address. Perhaps even having an armed force visit the judge and makes a citizen's arrest and hold him hostage.

If the govt ups the forces they want to use such as Waco, then even more volunteers would be called to defend Kim Davis' freedom.

Folks, that's how it's done as Americans have done before in towns and cities when they had nerve and conviction.

Just as it worked for that Clete fellow in Nevada.

The guns for the govt have no desire to face large armed forces that defy them and turn and run when confronted.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/kim-davis-political-prisoner-martyr/

From Rod Dreher: "Here’s what I think is going to happen after the dust settles:

1. Gay marriage will still be the law of the land.

2. A huge number of secular and/or liberal people in this country will be far less disposed to listen to anybody talk about religious liberty, and will be more willing to regard all religious liberty claims as Kim Davis-like special pleading.

3. A non-trivial number of conservatives will lose patience with and sympathy for religious conservatives, because whatever they think about same-sex marriage, they will see this as fundamentally a law-and-order issue.

4. A huge number of conservative Christians will become ever more alienated from America and angry at the government. This will hasten their exodus from the public square, and the fraying of the social fabric.

I have expected No. 4 for some time, because the direction of the nation is clear. But I would have expected it over a considerably more ambiguous case than this one. Kim Davis is a bad martyr for the cause of religious liberty, and we conservative Christians will come to regret her stance. But here we are, and there are some very loud, very sincere voices cheering her on, just to stick it to the Man. They don’t have an end game, and don’t care."

My hunch is that Rod is right, that this will backfire and further de-legitimatize all religious liberty/free exercise claims.

Leave it to Dreher to lack the imagination to recognize someone doing the right thing with courage or the generosity of mind to admire her for it.

Yeah, that's all it's about. Stickin' it to the Man.

I'm sure all my readers will recognize me very clearly in *that* description./sarc

Question is whether "Kim Davis defying Justice Kennedy’s revolutionary act with a revolutionary act of her own" (Kevin Williamson at NRO).

Or is she she "not in fact presenting a withering argument against Obergefell; that she is not in fact attacking the concept of judicial supremacy; and that she is not in fact attempting to find a means by which Christians can co-exist with the recent changes in the law. Rather, she is unabashedly setting herself outside the law, and justifying it on entirely self-interested grounds." (Charles Cooke at NRO)
Though I doubt Cooke's impartiality but the point remains. Is Kim Davis acting politically or self-interestedly?

My hunch is that Rod is right, that this will backfire and further de-legitimatize all religious liberty/free exercise claims.

Well, Dreher is flat, dead wrong about this:

Meaning that she doesn’t have a single legal argument left; she’s just defying the law, including the highest court in the land.

How about the point that four Supreme Court justices think the decision is "lawless"?

How about the point that "LAW" is an enactment passed by the legislature, not a decision OVERTURNING a law by a judge. That the notion of "law" issuing from judges is fraught with many difficult political issues.

How about the point that human authority rests on and is derived from God's authority, and thus no human authority can have a VALID exercise of authority that is directly contrary to divine law? That any so-called law that does so IS NO LAW?

For Dreher to simply throw all that under the bus is to make a mockery of his using the expression "we conservatives".

But there is nothing in our public order that gives people the right to defy the law without consequence. If the Supreme Court makes a ruling we don’t like, we are obliged to obey the law, or be willing to suffer the consequences of disobedience.

This is incoherent. She IS suffering the consequence. Not doing so would have been more along the lines of Mark Butterworth's approach: come out with guns blazing.

The thing is, King had a chance at achieving his goals in the long run. Kim Davis, alas, does not.

Well, probably her first goal is to get to heaven, and doing what she is doing now is very, very likely to improve her chances on THAT goal. If her second goal is to shake up the political order - even with just a nudge - so that in 10, or 20, or 50 years, America (or some successor political order) recovers its senses, how the heck does Dreher think he KNOWS that this act cannot possibly contribute to that eventuality. If her third goal is to help even ONE MORE official think about their own situation more honestly, well, it seems pretty likely that Dreher is wrong about that, too.

I have expected No. 4 for some time, because the direction of the nation is clear. But I would have expected it over a considerably more ambiguous case than this one. Kim Davis is a bad martyr for the cause of religious liberty, and we conservative Christians will come to regret her stance.

Dreher clearly has no vision in which something happens to turn America from its committed path. He cannot see it happening from THIS event in an orderly, "according to the rules" fashion, and he appears to think that if it happens in some unruly, outside the law fashion, this is A BAD THING. But he also cannot imagine any OTHER plausible pathway for such a turn, that IS according to the rules. Nor can he accept a position of losing in this life but winning in the next is a basis for acting. So, if I am reading Dreher right, he is advocating to conservatives permanent underclass status, or to just violate their consciences and follow the so-called "law" regardless of how foolish that is in the eternal scheme of things, because that's the law. Errr, the "law".

He has no intelligible understanding of law. He is incoherent.

Thank you, Tony.

I'm deeply tired of people who think they can just thunder, "Rule of law!" or "Gay marriage is the law of the land" and make everyone else shut up.

Frankly, it's disturbing to see anyone who is read by conservatives say such silly, simple-minded things.

It used to be that conservatives understood the concept of judicial over-reach and therefore knew better than to thunder such nonsense about absurd Supreme Court rulings. I swear, if the SCOTUS "found" in the Constitution that Mickey Mouse is President, I think some of these people would start yelling at all of us that the presidency of Mickey Mouse is the "law of the land."

But more: Do those yelling about "law and order" truly believe that civil disobedience is *never, ever* justified? Because that's what they're talking like. That's a pretty darned extreme position.

If conservatives thought that, in a world where normal views are increasingly hated and punished, there would _never_ be _any_ place where civil disobedience would be justified and admirable, then they were pretty foolish.

DR84, let me add: One could also have said to Jack Phillips that his refusal "would backfire." Any resistance whatsoever can be predicted to "backfire," and those (like, I think, Dreher) who don't really understand the issues are always predicting that resistance will backfire because they don't like resistance because, quite frankly, they don't really give a damn about these profoundly important issues.

Will it "backfire" for Jack Phillips and the Kleins to continue the fight to be "allowed to discriminate"? How about Barronnelle Stutzman? From the perspective of those who literally make giving up a virtue, anything but quitting entirely is likely to "backfire" (because it will "make us look bad," blah, blah, insert verbiage here). Such judgements about probable consequences are highly subjective, and I really see no specially good arguments that Kim Davis's stance is "just going to backfire." On the contrary, to some degree, I expect that putting her in jail will "backfire" and increase sympathy for her cause.

Does that mean that this whole problem is going to go away and that she is going to win and be reinstated triumphantly? Incredibly unlikely. But trying to convince everyone that she is a bad cause and that this is "all just going to backfire" as Dreher is doing *really is* defeatism, and defeatism of the wrong kind. I'm often accused of defeatism, but Dreher is essentially making a virtue out of giving up entirely, not even resisting for the principle of the thing. I find that pretty disgusting.

Can someone explain what law the judge thinks Davis is breaking?

She is an elected official. Either her elected office is elected because it harbors significant discretionary power, or the election is empty and all her office amounts to is a rubber-stamper like the clerk at the DMV who stamps the driver's license.

If the state law actually says something like "the county clerk shall issue a license when the requesters submit a valid form K", then yes, there presumably is a specific Kentucky law you can point to that Davis is disobeying. But if the law says instead that "requesters who validly submit form K shall be eligible for a marriage license" that alone doesn't require it be filled by the clerk.

And it is a federal judge, not a state one, who is putting her in jail. How does that not go beyond his reach? I haven't issued any marriage licenses since June 29, does that mean I could be found in contempt? On what basis can "I did _not_ issue a license" be a federal crime?

I _think_ it goes something like this:

There is a Kentucky law that says that state officials in Kim Davis's position "shall" execute the duties of their office, or something general to that effect. There is now Obergefell, a SCOTUS precedent, that states that states are obligated not to "discriminate" in issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples and that it is a violation of the homosexuals' constitutional rights if the state does so. Kim Davis, in refusing to issue any marriage licenses and ordering her deputies not to do so, was making it harder for homosexuals to get marriage licenses than it would have been if she hadn't done that. I'm _guessing_ some homosexuals brought a "color of law" suit alleging that she was using her official position to try to deny them their "constitutional rights," that a federal judge agreed, and that the remedy he concocted was a court order to her to start issuing licenses again, given that she is the clerk.

The homosexual activists were _also_ calling for her to be separately prosecuted under the generic Kentucky law that say that officials are obligated to carry out their duties, but AFAIK that hasn't been done (yet).

So she didn't precisely commit a federal crime, but she defied a federal court order directed at her office by preventing her office from issuing the licenses.

I note in support of this interpretation that the deputy clerks at that office have started issuing the licenses. This raises the interesting question (see main post) whether her name is going on them! After all, as an elected official, she can't actually be _fired_ (though she can be impeached), and apparently before she was jailed the deputies couldn't put their _own_ names on the licenses. So perhaps the licenses the scared officials are issuing today are "under her name" despite the fact that she is in prison for refusing to endorse them!

Refusing to obey a court order can get you thrown in jail, even indefinitely, without being charged with any crime. It's one of the oddities of our legal system that seems in need of reform, to put it mildly.

So perhaps the licenses the scared officials are issuing today are "under her name" despite the fact that she is in prison for refusing to endorse them!

Heh, wouldn't it be fun if that were to turn out to invalidate them? It would be, at the least, a fraud of a sort. There are all sorts of official documents that are made invalid by a flawed technicality.

Refusing to obey a court order can get you thrown in jail, even indefinitely, without being charged with any crime.

OK, so we need a habeus corpus rule for protection against abuse of POLICE powers, but not for judicial powers? How the heck does that even make sense? Yeah, I think you're right about reform there. If it turns out that a judge (say, a county judge) puts someone in jail for contempt, but doesn't have the authority to do that because either the person or the crime is technically outside their jurisdiction, there is no remedy? Except to ask, pretty please? I don't think the founders intended to create a branch of government like that.

but she defied a federal court order directed at her office by preventing her office from issuing the licenses.

But presumably the judge has to have some specific AUTHORITY to order her in the matter. That's what I am getting at. I would have though that proper procedure is that a STATE judge order her to comply with the law, and find her in contempt if she refuses. Once they passed the civil rights act, the specific issues covered in that were under jurisdiction of federal judges because it was a federal law. But marriage and licenses are under state law, not federal. I don't see how a federal judge has jurisdiction to order anything.

There is a Kentucky law that says that state officials in Kim Davis's position "shall" execute the duties of their office, or something general to that effect.

I suspect there probably is something somewhere on the books that can be read to mean this, more or less. But you have to wonder, what are they thinking when they pass laws like this? If it is illegal to NOT CARRY OUT your duties, what about all the legislators who go home before completing and voting on the bills offered? What about all the judges who leave cases sitting on their desks for 18 months? And frankly, how does it make sense to criminalize what ought to be discretionary in any event: either you have a boss and he is satisfied or not with your work, or "the people" are your boss and they tell you whether they are satisfied when they vote.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jailed-clerks-attorney-marriage-licenses-are-void/ar-AAdWizc

The issued licenses don't have her name and may be legally valid. Davis also has not resigned. So, basically...it seems it is possible for these licenses to be issued in that county without her involvement. Which raises a huge question, why is she in jail? d

But presumably the judge has to have some specific AUTHORITY to order her in the matter. That's what I am getting at. I would have though that proper procedure is that a STATE judge order her to comply with the law, and find her in contempt if she refuses. Once they passed the civil rights act, the specific issues covered in that were under jurisdiction of federal judges because it was a federal law. But marriage and licenses are under state law, not federal. I don't see how a federal judge has jurisdiction to order anything.

If I'm right, the judge's jurisdiction arises from a color of law suit that claims that she was blocking people from receiving their federal constitutional rights.

So, for example, suppose that a local police force sent deputies to tear down a sign on your church's property and prevent you from putting it back up. The sign says, "Jesus saves." Suppose that they had no legal right to do that, but the chief of police is rabidly anti-Christian and decides off the top of his head that it's a "disturbance of the peace" for your church to put up this sign. E.g. He says the local Satanist club will riot if you do it, and therefore it will disturb the peace if you put up the sign.

If the sign doesn't violate any other neutral ordinance (e.g., size, placement, etc.), then the police chief's actions are a clear color of law violation of your church members' right to free exercise of religion, at least if we accept the incorporation doctrine. (Yes, one can question the incorporation doctrine, but it is always taken as a given in all such contexts where a local or state entity is involved.)

So your church hires a lawyer, you go to court, and you bring a suit in federal court against the police chief for violating your church's constitutional rights. The judge agrees with you, and as a remedy (there always has to be a remedy when there is a finding that someone's constitutional rights have been violated) he issues a direct court order to the police chief to arrange for your church sign to be put back and to cease and desist from taking it down again.

At that point, the police chief is under a direct court order. The federal judge's jurisdiction to so order the police chief arises from the conclusion that the police chief was the one violating the church's federal constitutional rights and therefore must participate in the remedy.

A court order can also be issued when no one has broken a law or violated a constitutional right but someone is just reluctant to cooperate with the court's exercise of its necessary functions. For example, a court order can be issued when someone refuses to give testimony in a trial. That is the application of the constitutional right for the defense to "compel testimony."

A court order can also be given when no one has violated a law but a court has jurisdiction to determine what is best for someone. For example, suppose that some question arises about whether a ward of the court should receive a particular medical treatment. The judge looks into it and decides that the treatment would be in the ward's best interests, but the hospital is reluctant because of some previous dispute between the relatives. The court can provide cover for the hospital against malpractice suits by issuing a court order that the ward is to receive the treatment.

There are all kinds of ways for a judge to have jurisdiction to order a particular individual to do something even when no clear statutory law has been violated. I'm pretty sure my conjecture about a constitutional rights lawsuit and a remedy is the way that a federal judge got jurisdiction to issue an order to Kim Davis.

Lydia, if your analysis of the judges "reasoning" is correct (and I think it is), then it has taken only two months for the courts to rule same-sex marriage not only an equal right to real marriage but a special one above it. The courts are saying that a state (or agent of the state) is discriminating against homo "couples" if it refuses to issue marriage licenses. But discrimination means favoring one group over another, and in this case this other group has to mean non-homo "couples"-- i.e. traditional man-and-wife couples. Which means a normal couple who was denied by Kim Davis has no grounds to sue as they weren't discriminated against.

As bad as Obergefell's decision was, the reflexively tyrannical way the courts decided to enforce same-sex mirage on the final holdouts is even worse. At some point this all becomes academic, if left unchecked a judge will use his power to "reason" any way he wants. But at this point they're not even pretending to reason cogently.

I'm deeply tired of people who think they can just thunder, "Rule of law!" or "Gay marriage is the law of the land" and make everyone else shut up.

At this point, anyone who speaks of the rule of law in our country is living in a fantasy. Whatever we had before 9/11, the events from 2001 have shown that this country has become a banana republic. From the anti-terrorism changes, to the banking scandals and all of the radical changes under Obama in the last 1-2 years, the rule of law is dead. It's now just the rule of judicial diktat.

Contrary to Dreher, I think there's a far worse option that will be considered in the coming years if the public doesn't get relief (which we see a manifestation in Trump's popularity). I think we will see the rise of radical third parties like they have in Europe and they will bring options like secession to the table. People are waking up slowly to the realization they've been playing a sucker's game with a bunch of cheaters. This won't end well.

I recommend this Business Insider article as required conservative reading. Ignore the eff bombs, which are mostly there for effect, and let the main points sink in. This is our future under what passes for "the rule of law."

As far as I know, none of the people or parties involved the lawsuit wanted or requested imprisonment. That is solely the judge's doing. I don't know why such a drastic measure was taken but it may be because as long as she was technically in charge of the office, even if fined etc., she said she would order her subordinates to refuse to issue marriage licenses which actively blocked any remedy in the sense Lydia discussed.

According to this Atlantic article she has also received less than great legal advice.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/fatal-flaw-kentucky-clerk-lawsuit/403519/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/09/04/kim_davis_anti_gay_kentucky_clerk_is_a_gift_to_gay_rights.html

"What I doubt Dreher et al. have considered, though, is the extent of the damage Davis has done to the “religious liberty” movement. The crusade for marriage license exemptions is already in danger, as pretty much everybody will associate it, toxically, with Davis. But I suspect the destruction goes deeper than that. Davis’ demands don’t really differ all that much from those of, say, Melissa Klein, the anti-gay Oregon baker. Both want a special right to ignore a neutral, generally applicable law. Both cite their religious beliefs to justify receiving an exemption. And both have seriously degraded gay couples through their discriminatory practices. There are, of course, distinctions here—namely that Davis is a government official, while Klein is a private business owner. But is that really an important difference?"

It seems that even her being a government official is not necessarily particular important.

Lydia-

Yes, what Kim Davis is doing does make us look bad, but not because what she is doing is wrong but because it is right. It seems possible to me that someone who will experience negative repercussions for doing the right thing. Case in point, she is in jail, and so called liberals are already pointing her to as The Example of why religious liberty/free exercise claims are wrong and are always wrong when they intersect with so called gay rights at least.

Also, to be completely clear...of course Kim Davis should be able to keep her job and not have her name on so called marriage license issued to people of the same sex. That so many think that she should not be able to, even people who are otherwise on our side (who hold that she should just resign...as if losing your livelihood is no big deal), does not bode well.

In some respects, they have a point. Religious liberty is inherently problematic in society like ours because there is no common conception of the good beyond shallow platitudes anymore that most people throughout history could agree are good. It is increasingly becoming a real issue of "every man doing what is right in his own eyes" from a secular perspective, even if individual cases are truly meritorious.

Without a deeper conception of the good, however, that will be the least of our worries. America is increasingly becoming ungovernable because even people of good will who would submit their own personal tastes to the majority increasingly find that they cannot find a reliable majority outside of narrow issues which may not even overlap into comprehensive policy.

At a national level, this country is increasingly becoming like New York City, which is a rich, soft police state held together by the power of the state and national prosperity. That's why I expect that when the structural problems with our economy finally become unavoidable, and the latter is crippled or lost, we'll see extremism that's worse than any we've known before. It's largely the iron fist of the state and affluence that has kept the general public at peace. I don't think the peace can survive with only one of those, and certainly not if both are gone.

This situation has brought up an issue simmering in the back of my mind for sometime and this case has reluctantly thrust it to the fore. In a nutshell, at what point does a significant percentage of the citizenry decide that the federal government claiming powers established under the current (and in my opinion warped) version of the US constitution, is no longer valid? In other words when our forefathers ratified the constitution in 1787, the citizens (ie "We the People") recognized that the constitution provided a delicate balance of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, but more importantly it was understood to reserve powers to the states not specifically given to the federal government - primarily health, safety, welfare, and morals. Certainly I'm not the only person that recognizes that the federal government has expanded beyond its originally recognized boundaries, and if so, the respect and patience for institutions like the Supreme Court may have reached its limit. Coming back to the issue that has Kim Davis in trouble - why should we respect and hold sacrosanct Justice Kennedy's bizarre Obergefell opinion? (Obergefell is just one example of course - I'm sure readers can insert a laundry list of abuses) I haven't checked on this, but I'm assuming the people of Kentucky had some sort of law or state constitutional amendment up-holding the sanctity of traditional marriage? Would the delegates ratifying the constitution - or those even ratifying the 14th amendment - ever thought in a million years that a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court would force states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples (and coming soon polygamy/polyamory)? What are our options if "We the People" begin to doubt the governing contract agreed to in 1787 is still protecting us from an over encroaching federal government? At what point do we ask for a re-assessment or demand a constitutional convention? Just throwing my thoughts out there to the group. Am I the only one beginning to think this way?

Matt, your instincts are correct. We completely *do not* need to hold Obergefell sacrosanct at all. I wish there were thousands of Kim Davises all over the country.

Did people really think they could call this a lawless, unconstitutional opinion mandating a serious evil but that that would have _no_ practical repercussions? What are people thinking?

If the Supreme Court mandated the freedom of the rich to commit cannibalism on the homeless, would it then become "just the job" of the local authorities to make spaces for it in the park and issue licenses and parking permits for the cannibalistic bashes? Would they all have to "quit their jobs" if they were unwilling to make access for this behavior? (That, by the way, is not my example but that of the blogger Doug Wilson. I added the homeless.)

That's why I expect that when the structural problems with our economy finally become unavoidable, and the latter is crippled or lost, we'll see extremism that's worse than any we've known before. It's largely the iron fist of the state and affluence that has kept the general public at peace.

The Roman bread and circuses, paid for by tribute. In our case, the tribute is not exacted at the explicit threat of armed force, it is foreign countries subsidizing us with cheap goods by agreeing to submit to the dollar as the medium of exchange when it has no real value basis independent of their so agreeing. Which will succeed, just as long as everyone agrees the emperor's clothes are fine. One major disputant to it (see: China) and it will probably crash around our ears.

Mike, I think you are right. I have no confidence that the seeming peacefulness of our citizenry will continue when the prosperity sinkhole appears. There could either be an attempt at splintering of states and regional sections from the union, or anarchic implosion of command authority throughout followed by riots, gangs, and the rise of warlords, with immense loss of living standards. The failure of anything that sits as the answer to "the general welfare" as a broadly understood, accepted, and perceived unifying principle of the nation is not widely grasped, and among those who do grasp it seemingly half (the current half who have the upper hand) seem not to believe the failure is important.

In Rome, according to the pagan point of view, the Christians and pagans effectively were in a position as to say to each other that "you and I cannot be at peace side by side while our visions of 'the good of the temporal order' are in direct dispute". The Christians would not obey the existing rules for civil order, sacrificing to the pagan gods. The pagans solved the tension by putting the Christian to death. The empire was not a democracy, it consisted primarily of imperial lords and subjects thereto. The Christians, newcomers to the temporal scene, accepted persecution sheeply. The difference with here and now is (a) it is the new pagans and not the Christians who are the newcomers to the political order, and (b) the political order is one "by the people" so the very Christians whom the pagans wish to displace are, themselves, actually responsible for righting the political situation to the extent they can. That is to say, there is a different mix of variables to determine the prudent action and it is, plausibly, wrong and immoral for Christians to simply accept the persecution without a temporal fight - be that political or physical, as the case may be.

A somewhat morally comparable situation would be to look at the obligations of not the average Roman subject in 280, but the Roman soldier in the Praetorian Guard faced with obeying the "orders" either of one claimant to the throne who would persecute Christians with an iron rod, versus a less probable claimant to the throne who would not. It is not his simply to say "I obey" without judging where his obedience actually belongs. Or, perhaps to consider the situation of the myriad tribunes, praetors, and lesser magistrates in Rome in 50 BC faced with supporting and obeying the likes of Julius Caesar or Pompey, or in 37 BC faced with going along with either Octavius or Marc Antony. They had no moral option to simply say "I obey the proper authorities".

I think the issue is not as cut and dry as Dreher thinks. There are a lot of people on the secular right who don't support gay marriage, despise the tactics of the activists and hold views on Obergefell that are indistinguishable from the religious right in the practical details. Another thing that Dreher fails to realize is that "law and order" nonsense is far more of a thing among older conservatives than younger ones (like 40s and below). I don't know a single young conservative, religious or secular, who is anywhere near as afraid of a little anarchy as their older peers. In fact, most of them would relish a little implosion of the public order to shake things up and force people out of their complacency.

All these decades I have thought that there were quite a lot of my fellow conservatives who were just waiting for someone to have the guts to say, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it" about some crackpot SCOTUS ruling. That they would cheer when someone did and *especially* stand behind that someone if the resistance in question was non-violent, calm, and a mere refusal to cooperate in evil, combined with going off to jail like a true martyr when sent there. Yes, I knew there were those who would be like Pryor (discussed in the other thread) and get all quaking in their boots at the slightest hint of even passive resistance to SCOTUS nuttiness. But I didn't think there were _this_ many. I have been pretty discouraged now, these last few days, when Kim Davis has refused to issue same-sex "marriage" licenses and has peacefully gone to jail for it, and I'm seeing all over Facebook and elsewhere, and some very unexpected people too, all this loud, hectoring, thundering: "You don't get to disobey a law just because you don't like it." "You have to do what your employer tells you or quit the job." And other such juvenile generalizations that any self-respecting conservative should be able to refute a thousand times over in his sleep.

And it's apropos of a blatantly false, overreaching _court ruling_! What the heck have we conservatives been doing complaining loudly about judicial overreach all these years if we didn't even think a spot of non-violent civil disobedience to a court order, applying a lawless SCOTUS ruling, might someday be appropriate??

"You don't get to disobey a law just because you don't like it." "You have to do what your employer tells you or quit the job." And other such juvenile generalizations that any self-respecting conservative should be able to refute a thousand times over in his sleep."

At best I could have had a gut sense there was something amiss with those statements when applied to Kim Davis. I doubt I could have carefully explained what is wrong with them. Shame on me I suppose for that. If nothing else, what she is doing has been a teaching moment.

Of course, I am still leaning towards that the other side will use her and her actions to inflict further punishment on those that will not recognize same sex relationships as marriages. If she is a hateful bigot for refusing to do so, we all are, and we are probably only an anti-discrimination law away from all feeling it, and if not that a hate speech law (which no doubt is waiting in the wings if/when a SOGI anti-discrimination law is put through by, most likely, SCOTUS). Its hard to imagine she will be the first to be put in jail over this.

Perhaps just as ominous, if not more so, than the "she should do her job or quit" conservatives are the liberals who are happy that she is in jail. I have little doubt that if/when a baker/florist/planner/photographer goes to jail for "discrimination" that they will cheer and cheer loudly.

This is the direction that they intend to take us on a cultural level. Read that entire link, it's only a page, but it's a "code of conduct" that perfectly details where the radical left wants us to go as a society. If you are a conservative an inclined toward the view that you have to do what your employer wants or quit, then known that this is where your employer will likely end up taking you if you don't grow a pair.

Of course, I am still leaning towards that the other side will use her and her actions to inflict further punishment on those that will not recognize same sex relationships as marriages. If she is a hateful bigot for refusing to do so, we all are, and we are probably only an anti-discrimination law away from all feeling it, and if not that a hate speech law (which no doubt is waiting in the wings if/when a SOGI anti-discrimination law is put through by, most likely, SCOTUS). Its hard to imagine she will be the first to be put in jail over this.

But DR84, by that logic, it seems as though everybody ought to "recognize same sex relationships" because otherwise our refusal to do so will be somehow "used" to "inflict further punishment." If that's so, then are we all obliged to give in lest we be "punished further" for not giving in? Or are we just strategically obliged to somehow be quieter and more timid about refusing? That's accepting dhimmitude already--in this case, that a person with a normal conception of marriage is literally disqualified for public office!

DR84, for more on what is wrong with the statements, see my new post.

http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2015/09/kim-davis-metaphysics-and-public-square.html

Ha! Tony, it appears that you were right and that Davis had to _agree_ to the deputy clerks issuing the licenses. The deputies themselves cited _legal_ concerns about issuing them without her authorization. I'm presuming that this is because they would still be under her name. She has (of course) continued to refuse. What else did the judge think she would do?

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/kentucky_clerk_kim_davis_appea.html

Five of the six deputies had agreed to issue the licenses -- only her son would not relent -- but Davis refused to authorize them to do so...

Attorneys also called into question whether any licenses issued in Davis' absence would be legal.

Bunning said couples would have to judge that risk on their own. He indicated that he would lift the contempt charge against Davis if deputies began issuing forms, but he said he was reluctant to release her too quickly."

Bunning really seems to care about the law, doesn't he: I don't know whether it would be LEGAL for you deputies to issue without approval by your boss, but by golly I am going to grill you on whether you are willing to anyway!

3:20 p.m. The judge says Davis' son, the only one of six deputy clerks who wouldn't issue same-sex marriage licenses, won't face any fine or jail time since the other deputies have agreed to issue the licenses, AP reports.

This makes no sense. Either he should not be held in contempt because he has no authority to issue while the clerk refuses to consent to such licenses, and it isn't his problem, or he should be held in contempt because he is refusing to "do his job" regardless of how many other people are doing their job. After all, Davis is in jail for "refusing to do her job" even though every one of those couples can go to another county and get a license.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have proposed releasing Davis out of custody if she agrees to not interfere with marriage licenses for gay couples.

The judge has agreed to the proposal and is bringing Davis back to the courtroom to see if she will agree.

So there we have it: the judge (and the reporters) are morally illiterate. They simply don't know what it means to have a conscience. If Davis has a moral obligation to refuse to sign the darn forms herself, she also has a moral obligation not to give her consent to others doing it on her behalf. She isn't morally objecting to being the one to put ink on the paper in the form of her signature (which a machine could do), she is refusing to consent to the licensing of two people who cannot possibly marry each other. It's her CONSENT that she cannot give, asking for it in another pathway is obtuse. It is, actually, a kind of harassment: we know that you find this action morally repulsive, but we are still going to ask you: will you do it in a house? will you do it with a mouse? will you do in a box? will you do it with a fox?

1:57 p.m. Davis said she hopes the Legislature will change Kentucky laws to find some way for her to keep her job while following her conscience, AP reports. "But unless the governor convenes a costly special session, they won't meet until next year. "Hopefully our legislature will get something taken care of," Davis told the judge.

Until then, the judge said, he has no alternative but to keep her behind bars as long as she refuses to follow the law.

"The legislative and executive branches do have the ability to make changes," Bunning said. "It's not this court's job to make changes. I don't write law."

Well, I don't know how far the court's real powers extend, and I don't want to recommend judges become TOO activist, but I am willing to bet that the judge could have crafted some plan that allowed Davis not to go to jail, even while the couples got their licenses - if he really wanted to, that is. (Nor am I excessively reluctant to have judges go a bit activist in finding ways around outrages perpetrated upon them by a lawless supreme court. They play with fire, we can at least dabble in it in a good cause.) For example, what about "house arrest" instead of jail? Could he do that? Or, what about getting clerks from some other county in one day a week to issue licenses? Surely a federal judiciary that could TAKE OVER WHOLE SCHOOL DISTRICTS to implement Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act could figure out something. This kind of selective "oh, my hands are tied, I can't do anything" would be worthy of a bigoted, racially benighted school board that says "oh, we don't have the money to solve this problem", not a high and mighty federal judge, the kind of lordly being that can at will strike down marital custom of 5000 years standing and marriage law in 40 states with the single stroke of a pen. How can such a potentate be stymied by a single bottleneck of one lowly county clerk?

Gotta love the "I don't write law" when he is enforcing a SCOTUS decision that was, precisely, writing law. There is *no* statutory law that supports what he is doing. Not one scrap or syllable. The sentence, "I don't write law" in this context is an absolute joke. It was SCOTUS itself that was activist, writing law, and he is helping them to give effect to their act of writing law, which they had no authority to do.

Note too that it is _his_ court order that she is in jail for disobeying. He wrote the court order. He could simply have deemed that the homosexual couples were not really blocked in their ability to exercise their so-called "rights" by one county office and let her go her way. He would certainly have had the authority to do that. It is up to him to decide if any remedy is even needed and to decide which one to order. Or he could have deemed that, since she is equally inconveniencing heterosexual couples, no denial of homosexual couples' so-called "constitutional rights not to be discriminated against" is taking place.

"But DR84, by that logic, it seems as though everybody ought to "recognize same sex relationships" because otherwise our refusal to do so will be somehow "used" to "inflict further punishment." If that's so, then are we all obliged to give in lest we be "punished further" for not giving in? Or are we just strategically obliged to somehow be quieter and more timid about refusing? That's accepting dhimmitude already--in this case, that a person with a normal conception of marriage is literally disqualified for public office!"

Yes, that is exactly the case, and my mistake for not being clear. I have not been trying to make the case that just because others will use her actions as pretext to further clamp down on religious liberty/free exercise that she should have not acted as she has. They are going to do that either way. At most this just gives them one more "reason" to do what they already want to do.

I am also well aware that just stepping down would have been accepting that she is not fit for public office because of her beliefs, and that alone is convincing that what she is doing is better than having stepped down immediately.

Again, I am not advocating people should avoid doing the right thing because it will bring further punishment, but rather that we should do the right thing *in spite* of further punishment.

"Or he could have deemed that, since she is equally inconveniencing heterosexual couples, no denial of homosexual couples' so-called "constitutional rights not to be discriminated against" is taking place"

I may be mistaken on this and dont have the time to check into, but I believe that a judge who made so called same sex marriage legal in Massachusetts may have said something that amounted to marriage should be primarily seen in the light of the interests of same sex couples. If it was not Massachusetts it may have been in Canada.

Regardless, it does appear that so called marriage for homosexual couples is seen as more of a real right than marriage is for men and women.

In response to Tony's comments on harassment, this seems apt. Thomas More in Bolt's _A Man for All Seasons_.

I am the king's true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live. Nevertheless, it is not for the Supremacy that you have sought my blood, but because I would not bend to the marriage!