Why is Muhammad Ali honored and Kim Davis reviled for exercising the same right?

As Muhammad Ali is eulogized today, there will undoubtedly be (as there has been all week) accolades from liberals for exercising his right of religious conscience in refusing to be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War on freedom of religious conscience grounds.

So the question is this: Why is a Muslim's exercise of his right of conscience to refuse to serve in the military to be considered laudable while the Christian's exercise of the same right in refusing to participate in a same-sex marriage to be considered deplorable?

And by the way, saying that you agree with Ali and don't agree with, say, Kim Davis doesn't work. Rights aren't rights only when the reason for exercising them is one you agree with.

The #KimDavis Vote: Why putting your opponents in jail is a bad election strategy

Of all the people Republican candidates thanked in their acceptance speeches last Tuesday night, one name was noticeably missing. It was the name of the person most responsible for their victory: Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk who went to jail rather than violate her religious beliefs by issue same-sex marriage licenses now required under our unconstitutional judicial oligarchy.

In fact, Kim Davis won the gubernatorial election. And don't let anyone tell you different. Matt Bevin and the others simply rode her coattails into office.

This isn't to say anything negative about the candidates themselves. By all accounts Bevin won the debates with Conway, and his ads in the last two weeks of the campaign were clearly effective. And his decision to oppose the persecution of Davis was not only the right thing to do (and in consistent alignment with Bevin's practice of being transparent about his Christian faith), but was good politics.

Under any other circumstances, Jack Conway's devastating negative ad campaign would have been telling. But Kentucky voters were clearly more concerned to put someone in office who reflected their more conservative beliefs than anything else.

To borrow an expression from sociologist Peter Burger (who was speaking about the country as a whole), Kentucky is a commonwealth of Indians ruled by Swedes. In other words, while many of their leaders are secular liberals, the majority of Kentuckians are conservative.

Every once in a while political circumstances produced an impetus for these voters to turn out. This is what happened in the debate over same-sex marriage in 2004. And this is what  happened last week.

Putting your political opponents in jail is just not good politics.

There were certainly other issues in the race, most importantly Bevin's repudiation of Obamacare and KY Connect, its Kentucky manifestation. But this latter issue is just as likely to have hurt Bevin as to have helped him (this may have been the one thing Democrats were right about).

Not every election is a values election, but this one was, as Bevin's late campaign appeal testified: "Vote your values, not your party." That slogan not only appealed to Kentucky's many conservative Democrats to switch party loyalties at the polls: It was a signal to Republicans that, finally, there was a candidate who shared their beliefs about the visceral issues that, contrary to many political analysts, voters really do care about and was willing to do something about it.

The Democrats know this, which is why they wear their social beliefs on their sleeve. In the last presidential election, they wore their liberal beliefs about same-sex marriage on their sleeves. Republicans didn't lose because they didn't believe in these things: They lost because they never made their case for believing differently.

In places like Kentucky socially liberal Democrats win not because more people necessarily agree with them, but because they are the only ones willing to make their case.

Republicans lose when they cede the moral high ground to Democrats by dissimulating on their core values issues. The Romney campaign was the quintessential national example of the misguided belief that voters will turn out for you if you limit your appeal to abstract economic reasoning. People sometimes vote their pocketbooks, but more often they vote their hearts. And when only one party seems to have one, that's the one they vote for.

When Republican candidates abandon their socially conservative beliefs, they do it at their own peril.

And that is the lesson of last week's Republican victory: Conservatives will support people who support them.

A question for conservatives who think Kim Davis should "follow the law" or resign

I have a question for my fellow conservatives unsympathetic with Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses.

A number of conservatives have said that they think Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis should either "follow the law" or resign her position. The "rule of law," they say, is all-important and cannot be defied without threatening our very form of government.

So, here is my question:

Given that the Supreme Court defied the rule of law in a manner, given their power and office, far more destructive to our form of government (by ignoring the plain language of the Constitution, defying precedent, and just flat out making stuff up) than Kim Davis could do in fifty lifetimes, why did you never call on the five justices who made up the High Court's majority in the Obergefell decision to "follow the law or resign"?

I just find it ironic that their standards for the behavior of public officials is higher for a lowly county clerk than it is for an exalted member of the nation's highest court.

And let's not say that the Court has the right and responsibility to "interpret the Constitution." That dog most definitely won't hunt, since there is a legitimate distinction between interpretation and policy-making and the Court has defied as egregiously as it possible to defy it, and the argument that the Court has the right to do this on the basis of Marbury vs. Madison basically amounts to saying that the Supreme Court can do what the Supreme Court wants to do because it says so.

Family Foundation Press Release on release of Kim Davis: Strengthen KY religious freedom laws

LEXINGTON, KY--"While we hope Judge Bunning enjoyed a leisurely holiday weekend," said Family Foundation spokesman Martin Cothran, "we are sorry Kim Davis had to languish in jail, away from her family. Judge Bunning has ordered her release, but we wonder why it came for Davis after spending six days in jail. Nothing has materially changed over the weekend. If she didn't deserve to be in jail today, she didn't deserve to be put there in the first place."

The Family Foundation, the group leading the effort in Kentucky to support Kim Davis, said that the release does not change the problem of threats to religious freedom. "There is no indication that the next person who exercises his or her First Amendment right to free religious exercise will not be thrown in jail too."

Cothran called for strengthening Kentucky's religious freedom protections. "We need to make sure this doesn't happen again," he said.

Cothran also openly wondered if Bunning had second thoughts over the weekend about what he had done. "Judge Bunning and others who have a low view of religious freedom protections must have realized over the holiday weekend that they had created a marytr and hurt their own cause. It's too bad it took the mobilization of tens of thousands of citizens to force her release."

###

Judge Bunning orders Kim Davis released

Judge Bunning orders #KimDavis released on the condition that she lets her deputy clerks continue to issue marriage licenses in the name of the county clerk. Meanwhile, a huge crowd gathers in front of the jail.

Developing...

Religious Freedom Held Hostage: Jailing Kim Davis was not only a sin―It was a mistake

In all of the debate about gay marriage, no one ever even suggested that anyone who supported it should be put in jail. Now, however, we are incarcerating people for disagreeing with it.

In the case of Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk, we have a public official, who, her detractors originally said, should do her job in spite of her religious beliefs or resign. They apparently forgot to mention the option of putting her behind bars.

But all of these demands trample on a number of important considerations.

First, when Kim Davis took her oath to the Kentucky Constitution, that document stated very clearly that marriage was between one man and one woman. Gay marriage was literally not in her job description. In fact, in a sense her job description specifically banned doing this. Some Kentuckians will wonder how they would feel if they were hired for a job and then told that they were to do something not only at odds with their religious convictions, but precisely the opposite of what they were hired to do.

Maybe what the General Assembly should do once they rewrite Kentucky's statutes to bring them in compliance with the Supreme Court's unconstitutional dictate is to have all public officials swear an oath to the new Politically Correct version of the law.

Second, the ACLU-headed lynch mob that went after Davis doesn't seem to appreciate the fact that the right of religious exercise is an enumerated Constitutional right important enough to have been mentioned in the very First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

You can just imagine the reaction of the authors of the Constitution upon being told that future judges would downgrade this fundamental right in order to accommodate homosexuals wanting to get married―and that the change would be effected, not by the procedure they laid out (the amendment process), but through the usurpation by the High Court of the legislative prerogative.

One wonders what would be the reaction of the ACLU and their friends if the conflict involved in the Davis case involved another right mentioned in the very same sentence of the First Amendment: What if, instead of Davis' right of free religious exercise, it was her right of free speech that was threatened? We all know that the ACLU and its Amen chorus in the media would be holding up Kim Davis as a heroine. But the right of free religious exercise has the same Constitutional status as that of free speech.

Finally, what statute in Kentucky's law books is Kim Davis violating? Kentucky's marriage laws all assume traditional marriage, and will continue to do so until the General Assembly revises the law in the next legislative session.

One of these laws requires that the marriage license be filed in the county "in which the female resides." Any county clerk clerk who issues a license to a male same-sex couple is explicitly violating the law. In other words, the law itself has not been brought into line with the Supreme Court's questionable decision.

If a clerk is asked by two males to give them a marriage license in his county and he issues it, will Judge David Bunning throw him in jail for not following the law?

If Kim Davis is to be put in jail for not following the law as a public official, then (as some conservatives have pointed out) why haven't we also jailed the numerous other public officials who are not following immigration laws?

Was Gavin Newsome, the Lieutenant Governor of California, thrown in jail when he ignored then-current law and issued same-sex marriage licenses in 2004? And why wasn't Eric Holder (or for that matter Barack Obama) put behind bars for deciding in 2011 that it would no longer follow the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by the U. S. Congress in 1996?

Why were the people who are now so insistent on Kim Davis "following the law" so enthusiastic about violating it when doing so favored their own political interests? Why do liberals get to freely defy the rules, but conservatives must always be good little boys and girls and swallow their unconstitutional medicine?

There are some people, not a few of them conservatives, who think that the principle upon which Kim Davis operates is a recipe for anarchy. “What we cannot do," said The American Conservative's Rod Dreher, "and what the government cannot permit, is open defiance of settled law.”

"Settled law"?

"Settled" means you've been there a while. It means you've had time to acclimate yourself to the new situation. It means you're at peace with things. The problem on the same-sex marriage issue is that, although the proponents of same-sex marriage have gutted the Constitution, installed all new legal appliances, and completely redecorated the place, we're only just now moving in.

"Settled law" is what you get when a law has been around a while, when statutory law has had time to bring itself into compliance, and when it has been used as precedent for other laws. Obergefell isn't even close to being "settled law."

But more to the point, as Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee pointed out on last Sunday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolis, if that is the principle we are to follow, then what can we say about Abraham Lincoln's defiance of the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision?

The idea that the only two options are blind compliance with any and every law (even those that violate clear Constitutional protections) or complete anarchy is not only incorrect, it is the falsest of false dichotomies.

The people who articulate the principle that we are to always follow the law, no matter what, have not thought very hard about what that would mean. Do we really think, for example, that public officials in the South should have complied with Jim Crow laws requiring strict racial segregation? These laws were a lot more "settled" than same-sex marriage laws are today. In fact, the civil rights movement is filled with instances of the refusal to follow "settled law."

If we must obey the law in all circumstances then there is no relief from injustice and oppression. We make of every political disease a potential death sentence. Ever injustice threatens to become a fatal political malady.

The Supreme Court, in the process of rewriting the Constitution to bring it into line with with the left-wing attitudes of their fellow culture elites in Obergefell, changed the very definition of a concept that is woven throughout our law, affecting hundreds of thousands of public officials. Can we not expect that there will be people who it has placed in a serious ethical dilemma? Is there no way to accommodate them at all―at least until the statutory law is brought into line?

There are even a few conservative jurists who believe that Judge Bunning did the legally correct thing. Okay. But if they're going to maintain this, they're going to have give a coherent account of why Kim Davis isn't protected by Kentucky's Religious Freedom Protection Act, passed in 2013. Kentucky's RFRA requires that the government not only show that it has a compelling interest in substantially burdening someone's religious freedom, but that it use the least restrictive means of doing so? Judge Bunning ruled (on the basis of a not-very-persuasive argument) that she was not substantially burdened by the requirement to issue license, but he didn't even deal with the second criterion.

Why isn't Judge Bunning following the law?

If Bunning had taken full account of Kentucky's religious freedom law, this issue could have been easily resolved. All Davis asks is that her name not appear on the license. That's it. So why did we push everyone over a political cliff on this?

The reason, of course, is that they wanted to create a scene. Well, they accomplished that purpose. The trouble is that in looking like bullies, they only hurt their cause.

Not only is it wrong to have put Kim Davis in jail, but I think even the supporters of same-sex marriage will rue the day Bunning took this action. "It is worse than a sin," to quote Napoleon: "It is a mistake."

In throwing Kim Davis in jail, Judge Bunning has put a face on the issue of religious discrimination. His order produced a mugshot of Davis now circulating on the Internet. People of faith all over this country have to wonder whether this image is a sign of things to come in a country now ruled by judicial elites unsympathetic to the text of the Constitution itself and now seemingly hostile and punitive toward those with whom they politically disagree.

The same-sex marriage movement's anti-religious freedom crusade will now be seen for what it is: an aggressive and intolerant movement that is willing to jail people for exercising their legitimate Constitutional rights.

Kim Davis will be released from jail. But Judge Bunning's action will live on in infamy.

Huckabee lets loose on George Stephanopolous about #KimDavis

Mike Huckabee appeared yesterday on This Week with George Stephanopolous to discuss the #KimDavis. A number of his comments were run over at Breitbart. They were all good, but this one was particularly lucid:

You’ve got Democrats who ignored the law when it was the law to have traditional marriage. Gavin Newsom in San Francisco as mayor performed same-sex weddings even though it was illegal. Did he ever get put in jail? He most certainly did not. You have Barack Obama and Eric Holder, when he was attorney general. They ignored the rulings of [the Defense of Marriage Act].  Did they ever get put in jail for ignoring the law? They most certainly did not. So when is it that liberals get to choose what laws they support, but a county clerk in Kentucky who, acting on her Christian faith, is criminalized, jailed without bail, because she acted on her conscience and according to the only law that is in front of her?

Read the rest here.

Remember when Obama was the public official refusing to enforce the marriage laws?

The defenders of Tolerance and Diversity argue that Kim Davis, the Rowan County Kentucky Clerk who was jailed yesterday for refusing to issue marriage licenses, belongs in jail because she is a public official who has refused to do her job.

Here is the argument liberals are using to put Kim Davis in jail, in proper logical form:

All public officials who do not enforce existing law should be prosecuted
Kim Davis is a public official who does not enforce existing law
Therefore Kim Davis should be prosecuted

This syllogism is perfectly logical; that is, if the premises are true, then the conclusion has to be true. But are all the premises true? Is it really true to say that "All public officials who do not enforce existing law should be prosecuted"? If it is, then the liberal using the argument has a problem.

Ted Cruz made an excellent point the yesterday. He said, "Where is the call for President Obama to resign for ignoring and defying our immigration laws, our welfare reform laws, and even his own Obamacare?"

So let's keep the same logical structure of this argument and the same major premise (the one about public officials) but replace the minor premise and draw the new conclusion:

All public officials who do not enforce existing law should be prosecuted
President Obama is a public official who does not enforce existing law
Therefore President Obama should be prosecuted

Now if the first (or major) premise is true and the second (or minor) premise is also true (which it certainly is), then the liberals using this should be asked why it is, if they think that Kim Davis should be prosecuted, they don't also think that Obama should be prosecuted.

But Cruz has apparently forgotten about an even more relevant example, one that has to do with the marriage issue itself. On Feb. 4, 2011, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer be enforcing the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Hmmm.

Where were the people in the folks now so concerned with public officials doing their jobs then? Funny, but I can't recall them calling for Obama to resign or face jail time.

If the highest public official in the land is within his rights to refuse to enforce the law on marriage, then is Kim Davis not be within her rights to do the same thing?

Support Kim Davis and Die!

I would openly wonder whether publicly issuing death threats could land you in jail, but then I thought, well, maybe jail now is just for people who practice their religion.

Don't you love this tolerance stuff?

State Rep. Stan Lee's statement today on the jailing of Kim Davis

State Rep. Stan Lee's statement on Kim Davis:

FRANKFORT, Ky. (September 3, 2015) – “Today a federal judge jailed an American Christian for simply standing up for her Christian beliefs in opposition to issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.    As a result, today American Christians lost a little more of their freedom.  This should serve as a warning to others believers, that if you don’t think this could happen to you, think again. Think about the Christian baker, the Christian T-shirt maker, and now the Christian clerk.

In my view,  today’s action is a twisting of our entire justice system, and is no different than the  Sanhedrin throwing Peter and John into jail  for preaching in public.   I fear this will have dire consequences to our nation, especially  because of what  she was founded upon.

And what is so sad and alarming, is that all of this could have been avoided.   Therefore, I again  join with others in urging Governor Beshear to immediately call a Special Session to address this constitutional crisis.   Every day the Governor refuses to act,  is another day an American Christian remains in jail for following her sincerely held religious beliefs.”

What some people aren't getting about Kim Davis' rights

I posted this in the comments section of Rod Dreher's blog at the American Conservative today. Rod seems to be viscerally supportive of the now jailed Kim Davis, but has questions about whether she is in the right here. I have noticed this on other conservative blogs too.

The problem is that there are factors Rod and the others are not taking into account, mostly because they don't know about them:

Rod,

I think you are not taking several thing into account here.

First, the state constitution to which Davis swore an oath stated very explicitly that marriage was between one man and one woman. Therefore, technically speaking, she would be violating her oath to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. 

Second, Davis' refusal to issue a license does not prevent anyone from getting married. They can simply go to the next county down the road. In Kentucky this is easy, since there are 120 counties. The couple that brought the suite claimed that that was burdensome, but it wasn't burdensome for them to go to another county to file their suit. 

Thirdly, Kentucky just passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act two years ago that requires the government a) to prove that the government has a compelling interest in burdening someone's religious freedom, but b) that they have to use the least restrictive means in doing so. The judge in this case has ignored that law. 

Fourthly, all four legislative leaders here in Kentucky agree that this issue can be easily resolved by updating marriage laws that are out of date anyway, but the governor refuses either to call a special session to deal with it or to issue an executive order relieving Davis of this (arguable) obligation. All he has to do is sign an executive order and everyone gets what they want. But he has, by his inaction, precipitated this crisis. 

Finally, this is not an issue of civil disobedience. For one thing, we are talking about a public official, who is, by virtue of being one, part of government itself who claims that she IS following the law. For another, it is not civil disobedience to claim refuge in the Constitution to protect yourself against a misinterpretation of it. You may not agree with that practice, but it is not rise to the level of civil disobedience. You are not refusing to follow the law, but only denying that the "law" you are being asked to follow is really the "law." That is something very different.

Read more here.