The Situation of Kim Davis May Not Be What You Think

The current situation of Kim Davis, the County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who has been jailed for not signing marriage licenses (two other county clerks in Kentucky are also not issuing marriage licenses, though they apparently have not received the attention of the courts or the media) in the wake of the Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, highlights the difficulties of a person of religious conviction taking a role in the public life of these United States of America, so entrenched have we become in secular attitudes.

The more I consider Father Dwight Longenecker's suggestion that she should, following the example of Saint Thomas More, resign her post because she cannot in conscience fulfill the duties required of her, seems to me correct. He is right, after all, when he notes:

A resignation is not a compromise and it is not condoning something the religious person cannot condone.

Neither is a resignation an escape. It is a clear public statement which requires considerable sacrifice.

It is “rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”.

Still, I cannot help but doubt this suggestion, even as I agree with it. It should be remembered that the king still claimed the head of resigned Chancellor.

A number of arguments have been raised as to why Davis should either be removed from office or jailed, none of which seem sufficient, as R.R. Reno succinctly and calmly pointed out yesterday at First Things:

Some might say that her refusal to sign marriage licenses disqualifies her from holding her position as county clerk. She should resign or be removed. People are certainly entitled to that opinion. But Davis does not think she must resign. The county clerks in Kentucky are elected, so she can’t be fired. She could be impeached, but that’s for the legislators of the State of Kentucky to decide. And the citizens of Rowan County can vote against her in the next election. Conscience, properly exercised in civil disobedience that otherwise respects the law, isn’t always easy to dislodge.

I can imagine some harrumphing about the notion that Davis respects the law. After all, isn’t she refusing to act in accord with it?! I find this worry rather rich when expressed by progressives. For decades, elite colleges and universities run by progressives have made arrangements with local police that allow students to use drugs and drink while underage, free from the worry of arrest. These sorts of special arrangements, which are widespread in elite institutions, are not criticized for the obvious ways in which they undermine the rule of law.

Under the circumstances, Kim Davis poses little threat to the rule of law. Her actions have done nothing to prevent gay couples from getting marriage licenses throughout Kentucky. The couples that present themselves for her signature can easily go to the next county, as I’m sure heterosexual couples in Rowan County have done over the last two months.

Davis has herself has put forward several suggestions as to how marriage licenses might be issued in Kentucky - including removing the name of the county clerk from the license - while also accommodating religious beliefs. As Terry Mattingly of Get Religion observed - and helpfully documented and explained - yesterday, state law in Kentucky does not presently allow such accommodations, but such a change to the state's laws would be, as House Speaker Greg Stumbo (D-Prestonsburg) said, "an easy fix."

Why, then, has this easy fix not be done to respect both Davis' legal right to the free exercise of religion and the legal right of homosexual couples to what the law deems as marriage not yet been done? It should not be difficult to accommodate both rights. The reason why this has not been done is simple: Governor Steve Beshear (D) refuses to call a special session of the state legislature to resolve the situation.

The current argument, then, in Rowan County, Kentucky - despite the continued and widely accepted framing of the media - is not so much about a county clerk who refuses to do her job but about an executive who refuses to allow a religious accommodation for an government functionary. And this is why the jailing of Kim Davis should be a concern for all people of good will.

News Round Up - 10 September 2014

Here's another collection of the some of the news you may have missed:

• Data collected recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that - for the first time in American history - married people no longer comprise the majority of the population in the United States of America (or at least since this data was first collected in 1976). Taking together with the continually declining birth rate - in 2013 it fell to 1.87 children per woman,  below the figure 2.1 needed to maintain the current population - this is troubling. And, no, over-population isn't a danger.

• I've always thought of the penny as an unreasonable part of U.S. currency and recent news confirms this thought: The U.S. mint lost more $100,000 in the production of pennies (and nickels) last year.

• The National Football League (NFL) collected more than $9,500,000,000 in profits in 2012, beating out the profits of any another national sport (Major League Baseball came in second with $7,000,000,000 in profits). The combined revenues in 2012 of the NFL, MLB, NCAA, NASCAR, NBA, and the Premier League totaled a whopping $33,700,000,000. Curiously, no one calls for any of these monies (not even part of the profits) to be used on the poor. Imagine what the churches could do if peopled contributed to charitable causes with the same energy!

• For months now we have been rightly hearing of the plight of Christians in Iraq and in Syria at the hands of the Islamic State and news of the plight of Christians in Nigeria under Boko Haram is coming to light, but we have not yet heard much about the plight of Christians in Libya where Catholics now feel "trapped and helpless" as the Dawn of Libya grows in strength. In three different parts of the world Christians are suffering persecution from militant Islamic groups, and these three are not the only ones active in the world.

• The Supreme of Court of Louisiana recently decided that if a penitent chooses to "waive" the seal of the confessional, a confessor can be required to reveal what he learned within the Sacrament of Penance. The Diocese of Baton Rouge has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. This explains why the confessional seal cannot be violated.

• Archeologists digging at Tokat Castle in Turkey have unearthed dungeons where it is believed Prince Vlad III the Impaler - the historical origin of the legends of Count Dracula - was held captive in the early 1400s.

• The President of the Philippines, Benito S. Aquino III, has a introduced a bill that would create a new sovereign - mostly Muslim - region in the south Philippines aimed at ending more than forty years of Islamic rebel activity. In the long run, this is not likely a good idea.

A news round up - July 7, 2014

Some of the news you may have missed:

• Despite claiming "to providing primary care in a timely manner," a veteran just received an appointment with a doctor through the VA. There's just one problem: he died 22 months ago. And people actually want the federal government involved in their healthcare? 

• In a related story, another veteran died after waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance in a VA hospital.

• There is a 14th century castle for sale in Bavaria, though it looks to be in need of some repair.

• For the first time, a woman has been appointed rector of a Pontifical University: Sr. Mary Melone at the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome.

• Writing in the Huffington Post, Ronald Lindsay suggests it is inappropriate to have six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court. If you think anti-Catholicism is not slowly growing again in the U.S.A., you are sadly mistaken and blind to the reality around you.

• 82 people were shot (14 of whom were killed) in Chicago over the July 4th holiday weekend. And some people wonder why don't like Chicago (35 people were shot [1 of whom was killed] in Chicago last weekend). And this for a city with some of the strictest gun restrictions in the country.

The "Hobby Lobby case": What's it really about?

As part of the liberal-minded world erupts in tremendous anger over the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. et al (going so far as the encourage people to engage in sexual relations inside Hobby Lobby stores and even to burn the stores down), it might be good to take a breath and consider what is really at the heart of the matter.

Though many of those dissatisfied with the decision of the Supreme Court claim the decision restricts access to contraception and harms women's overall health, Katrina (a.k.a. the Crescat) rightly points out, "you are not going to die from not having sex." More to the point, contraception was not the issue of the case, as the decision clearly states.

Of the twenty (20!) different forms of "birth control" required under the HHS mandate (which was not passed by the Congress and is not actually part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), Hobby Lobby willingly paid for sixteen (16!) of them.

Here we should pause to ask an important question, which Katrina brilliantly asks:

So I ask – birth control of all things?! I mean of all the drugs out there that people actually need to survive, why something as selective as birth control. No one is going to go into heart failure, kidney failure or diabetic shock without their Yaz. So what the hell, people! I seriously don’t know how anyone can legitimately think free contraception is a dandy idea and a good use of tax payer and government funds. 

I could have asked every single one of my patients what drug they would love to have for free and I can guarantee not a single one of them would’ve said, “Hook me up with some free condoms and pills, please.” Has anyone in our administration ever even met a sick person or someone suffering from a chronic disease and asked them what medications they would like Uncle Sam to foot the bill for?

The government has not yet offered to pay for my arthritis medicine, which I need to move each day. Why? No one will - or, perhaps, can - answer her question.

Back to the case in question. The four forms of contraception to which Hobby Lobby objects (one device and three medicines) do not prevent conception, but instead prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg; this is not contraception but abortion, as even the Obama administration has admitted.

N.B.: The issue before the Supreme Court was not contraception, but abortion and the free exercise of religion (even if the media and liberal politicians maintain otherwise, as only someone who has not read the decision could do).

So the rhetoric of the "war on women" goes on, despite the fact that a majority of the decisions that led to the declaration of the HHS mandate as unconstitutional were given by female judges:

All of this is irritating and frustrating because it is dishonest, immature, and illogical, but more troubling to me are arguments that go along the lines of this meme:

This is another immature and illogical argument, but one far more dangerous because of its lie and deception.

On a friend's Facebook page yesterday, I showed the error of this meme:

So far as I can tell, Islam does not accept abortion as morally licit. At the heart of the Hobby Lobby case was not contraception, but abortifacients. That being the case, inserting "Islam" in place of "Christian" - or even along side it - wouldn't actually change anything.

While it may be true that some Christians would be opposed to the above scenario, I do not think I know any of them. Certainly, the Catholic Church advocates for the free exercise of religion in general and not only of her own, as was clearly stated with the Second Vatican Council's declaration Dignitatis Humanae.

I have never before quoted anything from Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a., the Mormons), but this quote seems especially apt here:

If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing before Heaven to die for a 'Mormon,' I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbytarian [sic], a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves.

The issue at hand is the free exercise of religion - of any religion - as protected by the First Amendment. I am unaware of any religion that claims the use of abortifacients on religious grounds.

SCOTUS rules in favor of churches

The Washington Post has a story today regarding a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the area of religious discrimation and freedom:

In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination.

But the court’s unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the government’s protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious employee, who can’t.


It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the existence of a “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws — a doctrine developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions.

This is very good news!