In Theory: A county clerk takes religious exception to the law
One of the most-covered people in the media the past couple weeks has been Kim Davis, the elected county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., who continues to refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, saying that doing so violates her religious beliefs, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s nationwide ruling that gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.
Davis was jailed (and later released) for contempt for refusing to comply with a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
“The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order,” Judge David L. Bunning said. “If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.”
This drama has led to a discussion on whether Davis’ religion gives her the right, as a public servant, to refuse to follow the law. Several GOP candidates have weighed in, including Mike Huckabee, who said the clerk’s jailing “removes all doubt of the criminalization of Christianity in our country.”
Q: Do you agree with the judge’s ruling? Is this issue about religion liberty or obeying the law?
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I do agree with the judge’s ruling. While one’s religion is important, one cannot disobey the law with impunity.
When Martin Luther King and others during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and ‘60s disobeyed laws they thought were wrong, they went to jail without complaint. So it’s fine for Kim Davis to stand up for her religious beliefs, but that means she has to be prepared to take the consequences, and the consequences mean jail.
Also, now that she’s out of the slammer at this writing, if she doesn’t obey the law, she’ll go right back in, and she should go right back in.
In the New Testament book of Acts, Peter and the other disciples say they must obey God and not man.
But Peter and the other disciples went to jail for their beliefs, and tradition has it that they all died terrible deaths (with the possible exception of John, “the beloved disciple”) for what they believed. So Kim Davis has to decide if she’s willing to stay in jail for her beliefs, or get out and try to deny others (gays and lesbians) their lawful rights.
By the way, how “Christian” is that, to deny another his/her rights as a citizen? It is a thorny problem, and in a way I admire Kim Davis for standing up for what she believes — but what she believes also denies others their lawful rights, and is that what Jesus had in mind? Obviously, I think not.
The Rev. Skip Lindeman
La Cañada Congregational Church
La Cañada Flintridge
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This is unquestionably an issue of religious liberty and our Supreme Court’s willful violation of it.
When the highest court of the land establishes laws (and that’s what this court has essentially done) that violate well-known, widely held and sincere religious beliefs, they criminalize faith and oppress God’s people.
At most this should have been a human resources issue in Rowan County. And even then, Kim Davis’ religious beliefs should have been respected. She has the constitutional right to practice them. There is absolutely no justification for Judge David L. Bunning’s imprisonment of her.
When they were prohibited from preaching Christ in public “Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men’” (Acts 5:29). The church and the message of the gospel prevailed.
When Pharaoh oppressed God’s people his country was brought to near ruin and God’s people prevailed and were brought out by God into freedom.
When Nebuchadnezzar demanded worship of his idol and God’s people were thrown into the furnace for noncompliance, God held back the power of the flames and caused his name to be glorified, even by the lips of the pagan king.
There is a long-standing history of the downfall of nations that oppose God and mock his word. There is an equal history of God defending his people when we take a stand for him. This age in our nation’s history will be no different.
Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank
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Bible Belt Kentucky had deigned same-sex relations to be illegal, and certainly not marriageable, until just recently. Its citizenry had maintained that moral perspective and elected (by majority vote) their current County Clerk.
When the law changed, the duly seated official found herself stuck. She wasn’t homophobic, she genuinely felt compelled by a Supreme Court greater than the U.S., and her faith forbade her from cooperating with a sin that had only just been sanctioned by amoral judges. America would do well to have such public officials who were more bound by conscience than paychecks, and the homosexual vitriol against Kim Davis is certainly not morally superior to her position; it does nothing to gain sympathy for its cause.
I personally believe she could have issued the licenses virtuously, however, if she understood that her position in this case was merely functionary. She’s not endorsing gay marriage by issuing marriage licenses, she’s essentially giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
In this case, a secular government is granting its secular citizens a license through a Christian person (whose secular job is to simply convey). It’s not much different than religious postal workers delivering Playboys to family homes, store clerks selling Night Train to winos, or any of us paying taxes that are then distributed to baby-killing Planned Parenthood. It’s all symptomatic of a fallen civic world that’s not biblically committed, and yet we’re all bound to reluctantly participate.
I do think that Davis’ religious objection could be accommodated by allowing subordinates the proxy role of clerk in special circumstances. With all the various duties assigned to Davis, if she can’t in good conscience do this one thing, let someone else do it. Any of us could find ourselves in her shoes at some point and we’d all appreciate some leniency in those moments.
Christians have one unassailable rubric by which we must live, or should: if something cannot be done in good faith, it should not be done — even when it isn’t biblically sin (Romans 14:23 ERV). It becomes sin when someone believes it is yet does it anyway.
If Davis truly believes it’s God’s will, there’s no going against it. She will either have to be removed from office or be accommodated, and with all the other societal accommodations out there, this seems like a minor concession for a conscientious sister with divine intentions.
Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga
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The issue is not about religious freedom, but about a governmental employee refusing to obey the law of the land.
No one is asking the clerk of the court not to believe what or how she believes it. Her job, though, mandates that she, as an officer of the court, carry out the laws of the United States.
Her refusal to do so is all the sadder because our country has a history of compromise to help people who feel that their religious convictions will not allow them to carry out the decisions our government has made.
The people are, of course, conscientious objectors who, while serving in the military, feel they could not harm the enemies of our country. The C.O.s were given jobs in the military that could be done without ever having to shoot a weapon or do violence to others.
Davis has the option of having others sign and give out marriage licenses without ever having to make contact with those she deems “enemies” of her religious beliefs. What a pity she made the court system the same. Her uncompromising attitude was unconscientious.
Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank
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Marriage equality in the United States is now a done deal legally, and I say hurray. The Kim Davis story is verging on the surreal at this point. Even the composer of the theme song of one of the worst Rocky movies wants her to stop using his music in her act.
She is the latest star in a continuing melodrama — a performance orchestrated by the far right-wing apparatus to give their agenda the appearance of being an actual grass-roots movement.
Of course the judge is correct. Davis has a serious misunderstanding of religious liberty. She is free to practice her religion, it is just that those beliefs are irrelevant to our secular system of government under which church and state are separate. How she feels about gay marriage or anything else for that matter does not allow her to neglect and deny the duties she swore to perform.
To paraphrase a recent L.A. Times letter to the editor, we put our hand on the Bible (well, some of us do) and pledge to uphold the Constitution, not vice-versa.
Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose
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Kim Davis’ case is the most recent of several involving a conflict between religious conscience and the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage. Her circumstances differ in that she is not a private business owner, but a sworn elected official.
LDS leaders over the past year have expressed grave concern about threats to freedom of religion in the United States and elsewhere. However, they haven’t presented an opinion on the Davis case. I share the concern about religious liberty and I sympathize with Davis’ desire to remain true to her religious beliefs. However, I have concerns about the approach she has taken.
My personal opinion is that as a public official, Davis has an obligation, under the oath she took, to follow the law while seeking an executive order removing her name from marriage licenses. According to press reports, Davis first refused to issue licenses to gay couples and later had her office stop issuing them altogether. In doing this she, in effect, imposed her beliefs on everyone in her county who sought a marriage license.
Several states have passed legislation that allows public employees with religious objections to certain duties to delegate them to others. This allows the system to work while preventing violations of conscience. Unfortunately for Davis, Kentucky’s religious freedom law is not that specific.
The legal battle over gay marriage has ended. Now that it is the law of the land, protections should be provided so that those with sincere religious beliefs should not be forced to act against their convictions. In the meantime, in my view, the law should be upheld.
Michael White
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
La Crescenta