Liberal standards that only non-liberals must follow

At the Atlantic magazine Jonathan Merritt condemns the recent statement from Intervarsity Christian Fellowship that its employees must adhere to traditional Christian teachings on marriage. He imagines all the bad things that could happen under such a policy, such as that people who work for them would have to, well, adhere to traditional teaching on marriage.

Imagine. An institution requiring people to adhere to its purpose.

Once again we have liberals who want to hold others to standards they themselves refuse to adhere to. Liberal institutions routinely reject people for employment who hold conservative views. Go try applying for a job at at your local college's "women and gender studies" department and tell them of your traditional views on sexuality and see how far you get. Go try applying at Planned Parenthood and divulging that you are pro-life and see what kind of reception you receive.

And, of course, the Atlantic itself is so tolerant and diverse. Surely they would not exclude writers who, say, take a traditional view of marriage. Why there's ..., er, well, the writer, uh... Hmmm. Come now that I think about it, they don't have any writers who take that position.

Physician, heal thyself.

#TimKaine signed the same religious freedom bill as Pence. So where's the outrage?

Remember the public meltdown among the Tolerance and Diversity crowd over Mike Pence signing an Indiana law that simply underscored the traditional protections religious people have enjoyed under the First Amendment's religious exercise clause?

Well, it turns out that Tim Kaine signed virtually the same law on Virginia in March of 2007.

The media has repeatedly brought the Indiana law up as justification for criticizing Pence as the Republican's vice presidential candidate. So why isn't Kaine criticizable for the same reason--particularly since he is the running mate for the liberal candidate for president ("liberal" being defined as the political faction which stands for progressivist values, but only when the political winds are blowing the right way).

As far as I can tell there has been no national coverage of this fact, which means either that the media doesn't know it yet, or that they know it and are giving Kaine a pass.

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.

Hypocrisy Alert: Bruce Springsteen, call your record label.

Excuse me while I extract myself from the saccharine self-righteousness of the stories I've been reading about businesses and celebrities who are boycotting North Carolina and Mississippi for their Political Incorrectness.

In addition to the hypocrisy of punishing people they disagree with under the label of tolerance and diversity, they have added another level of insincerity to their hypocrisy portfolio by boycotting whole states that engage in discriminatory behavior--or what passes for discriminatory behavior among the fevered ideologues who have taken over the culture.

Here's Brandon Morse at RedState on the sad condition of the liberal cultural schoolmarms now wagging their fingers at other people for violating the new moralistic tolerance standards:

PayPal decided they weren’t going to build a global HQ there, even though they have HQ’s in places like Singapore, which arrest gays on site just for being gay.

And then there's the Boss, who has willingly let himself be Blinded by the PC Light:

Bruce operates under the Sony label, who does business in countries where you can be jailed, or even killed for being gay. Is Bruce going to drop Sony in solidarity with the freedom fighters? If he’s that into moral grandstanding, then that would be his next logical move, right?

But moral posturing doesn't really involve any logic. It's just a cheap way to make yourself feel like you have really struck a blow for some revolutionary progressivist principle. It doesn't cost them a thing and it gets you applause among your progressivist friends.

Controversial NC religious freedom law saving the state from over-the-hill rock stars who really need to retire anyway

Already North Carolina's religious freedom law is benefiting the state. First Bruce Springsteen canceled a concert date there and now Bryan Adams has now followed suit in Mississippi, which has passed another law deemed unacceptable to the Tolerance Police. If the trend continues, these states will have completely rid themselves of the problem of aging, overrated rock stars who really should have retired years ago continuing to perform way beyond their expiration date.

Several years back, Springsteen did the Superbowl Halftime Show. At one point in the performance the sixty-some year old rocker did his patented stage slide toward the camera. It was not exactly graceful and probably had him bedridden the next day, with massive doses of Advil coursing through his veins.

I remember my wife furrowing her brow, shaking her head, and saying, "He's way too old for that."

Speaking of aging rock stars, how much longer can the Rolling Stones continue to perform? Keith Richards really should have died a long time ago. In fact, I suspect he really is dead, it's just that nobody has bothered to tell him yet. 

Then there's acts like Kiss and Alice Cooper, whose members no longer need to wear makeup in order to look scary.

And will someone please tell Boy George that he's no longer a boy (or girl, or whatever he was)?

Not only that, but if Iggy Pop takes his shirt off one more time, they're going to have to pass a law—one a whole lot more punitive than the one North Carolina just passed. It was shocking when he did it back in the early 70s, but it's shocking for an entirely different reason now.

No rock band should be allowed to perform in concert whose members, in addition to having to practice prior to a concert, must also be exhumed.

I'm not terribly familiar with Adams (then again, he's a Canadian, why should I care?). Looking at his date of birth, I see that he qualifies for inclusion in the category of "Rock Stars Who Really Need to Grow Up And Stop Embarrassing Themselves."

Kentucky had our chance to be included in the list of places these people would not come this past session. But SB 180 didn't make it through the Kentucky House. It's worth trying again next year, if only to be rid of this cultural nuisance.

Gay rights groups in doublethink mode over new state laws

There's currently a national dust-up over two types of laws that are cramping the style of LGBT groups who want to impose their views on everybody else and bully religious people in the process. 

The first are religious freedom laws, that, say critics, will result in discrimination against gays  which is wrong because, as one commentator said today on NPR, they were "created that way."

The second are bills requiring people to use the bathroom facilities that correspond to their biological sex. We can't have these because it would discriminate against "transgendered" people, who have the right to decide what gender they are.

So one law is wrong because people are created with a certain gender. The other law is wrong because you can decide what gender you are despite how you are created.

We could call these mutually exclusive position examples of Orwellian doublethink, but that's probably considered unacceptable too—for undoubtedly conflicting reasons.

My response to the Lexington Herald-Leader's editorial against the Rights of Religious Conscience Act, SB 180

The following is my response to the Lexington Herald-Leader in its original. The published version, printed in the paper last Friday, is here.

It is easier to tell the truth than to lie because when you lie you have to make stuff up, and making stuff up is hard. So perhaps the most positive thing to say about many of the criticisms of SB 180 The Freedom of Religious Conscience Act, is to congratulate the critics on the effort and imagination it must take to misrepresent it so badly.

The Lexington Herald-Leader, acting in its usual role of mouthpiece for liberal groups, said the bill would "let businesses refuse to serve gay customers for reasons of faith" and, in its editorial several days later, would "overturn local ordinances" that ostensibly protects gays from "discrimination."

You would really have had to work up a sweat to think up a mischaracterization that bad. 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article62548582.html#storylink=cpy

SB 180 was written specifically to stop anti-religious bullying. It focuses on the protection of rights of cosncience of business owners very carefully and limits these protections solely to those services that involve the service provider personally in the event for which the service is being provided. This would cover only a very small number of cases.

Not only would the bill protect the Christian photographer who is asked to provide his creative services for a gay wedding, but it would protect the Black T-Shirt company who might be asked to print a T-shirt with White Supremacist messages.

SB 180 has nothing to do with a waiter serving a meal at a restaurant or a cashier at Wal-Mart, as the Herald-Leader coverage implied. All it does is to stop the increasingly aggressive bullying of people of faith who would be forced to provide a service that would directly involve them in an activity that violates their religious convictions.

The critics of SB 180 in and outside the media don't seem to want to actually read the bill--either that or they diliberately misrepresent it. 

While the Herald-Leader and the groups apparently feeding it its lines claim to be opposed to discrimination, they adre instead promoting anti-religious hatred and encouraging the bullying of people who are minding their own business and simply trying to do the right thing according to their religious beliefs.

SB 180 would provide a very small safe space for religious people whose livelihoods are increasingly being threatened by those who preach tolerance, but who seem to have very little idea about how to practice it themselves.

The critics ought to issue a retraction. That would be the honest thing to do. And the nice thing about honesty is that it requires very little effort and no imagination at all. 

Family Foundation press release on today's passage of the Freedom of Religious Conscience Act

LEXINGTON, KY--The Family Foundation said that today's passage of a bill protecting certain businesses from anti-religious discrimination by a chamber of the state's General Assembly was a victory for religious tolerance. "SB 180 will hopefully prevent at least some of the extreme forms of anti-religious bigotry we are starting to see directed toward people of faith who own businesses that offer creative services," said Martin Cothran, spokesman for the group.

SB 180 passed the Kentucky State Senate 22 to 16. The bill now goes to the State House.

"The increasing climate of intolerance toward people whose religious beliefs don't accord with the narrow dogmas of Politically Correctness makes the passage of this legislation imperative. It applies only to very specific kinds of businesses whose services require involvement in the events for which the services are being sought."

Cothran said that because of the limited scope of the bill, lawmakers should recognize that its protections do not violate the spirit of anti-discrimination laws that seek to protect certain groups.

Gay rights groups hurt their cause by supporting anti-religious bullying

Today's press release from the Family Foundation:

LEXINGTON, KY--A spokesman for The Family Foundation said today that he thought that it would hurt the gay rights movement to continue to support anti-religious bullying. "If groups like the Fairness Alliance continue support the aggressive bullying of religious people who are just trying to mind their own business and live out their religious beliefs, they're going to lose some of the sympathy they've been able to gain in recent years," said Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst for the group.

"To use the LGBT label to mask a malicious vendetta against religious people is not going to help you win friends and influence people. These groups need to start practicing the tolerance and diversity they are always preaching."

"The live and let live philosophy they espouse does not go well with their search and destroy tactics when it comes to dealing with religious people who disagree with them," said Cothran. "To threaten people's livelihood and even send them to jail when they can't force them to deny their religious beliefs is just not a good PR strategy for their movement."

The comments came after an aggressive campaign by The Fairness Alliance and the ACLU to oppose Senate Bill 180, which would ensure that businesses owned by religious individuals are not forced to provide a service that would directly involve them in an activity that violates their religious convictions.

Cothran said the Fairness Alliance had blatantly misrepresented the bill in its public statements, say the bill. "The leaders of these groups need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask whether it's really worth distorting the truth to prevent the passage of a bill that protects just a small handful of businesses that just trying to do the right thing."

"We need to stop anti-religious bullying," he said. "SB 180 will do that."

###

Surprise, Surprise: Herald-Leader story on SB 180 repeats Fairness Alliance propaganda.

Most of the news stories on Senate Bill 180 were pretty good, but the Herald-Leader story by John Cheves could have been written by the Fairness Allliance, whose commitment to truth and accuracy on its pet issues is, shall we say, tenuous:

A Senate committee approved two “religious liberty” bills Thursday, one to legally protect businesses that don’t want to serve gay, lesbian or transgender customers because of the owners’ religious objections, and the other to protect religious expression in public schools.

The first measure, Senate Bill 180, would prohibit the government from compelling services or actions from anyone if doing so conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs. The bill expands the state’s 2013 Religious Freedom Restoration Act to clarify that businesses could not be punished in such cases for violating local ordinances that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Um, hold on there, Pardner.

 

Under this description, a reader could infer that someone coming into a restaurant could be denied service by a waiter because he was gay. This is, of course, part of the Fairness Alliance's propaganda. The problem is that it isn't true.

The bill only those cases in which, because of the nature of the service, the service provider is essentially being asked to participate or endorse the activity for which the service is being requested. It does not apply to the vast majority of business situations. We're talking only about those cases like the Oregon baker and the New Mexico photographer who are essentially being asked to participate in an event to which they have religious objections. Not the waiter at Shoney's or the cashier at Wal-Mart.

A Jewish restaurant owner should be required to serve everyone, but he shouldn't be required to serve pork.

The fact that the Herald-Leader is willing to serve as the mouthpiece for the Fairness Alliance isn't all that surprising, of course. It sold its soul long ago. The problem is that newspapers that sell their souls start selling fewer papers, which is one reason why few people are crying many tears about the demise of liberal big city newspapers like the Herald-Leader.

 

Cheves, incidentally, is the same reporter who wrote about a couple of people at the rally for the Marriage Amendment in 2004 holding signs saying "God Hates Fags" and conveniently forgot to mention that the crowd shouted them down.

Family Foundation calls proposed law, "Religious Discrimination Act of 2016"

Below is today's press release from The Family Foundation on HB 155:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FEBRUARY 14, 20165

LEXINGTON, KY—The Family Foundation today announced its opposition to House Bill 155, a gay rights bill which the group says will worsen the problem of discrimination against people of faith in the Commonwealth. The group called HB 155 the "Religious Discrimination Act of 2016."

"This bill will be used as a club to punish Christian business owners whose religious beliefs prevent them from towing the liberal party line on gender issues," said Martin Cothran, spokesman for the group. "This bill will sacrifice Christian-owned businesses on the altar of Political Correctness."

Under the guise of civil rights, the bill would force Christian-owned businesses to violate their religious principles when in hiring employees and could force some Christian-owned businesses out of business altogether, said Cothran.

He said that similar local laws in Kentucky have already been used to force Christian business owners to participate in events that violate their religious beliefs. He pointed to a Lexington T-shirt company that a local human rights commission prosecuted when the Christian business owner refused to take part in the promotion of a gay rights event. "The Religious Discrimination Act of 2016 will further worsen the targeting of Christians who just want to mind their own mind their own business and go about their lives without being persecuted for their religious beliefs."

HB 155 has been posted for passage in the House Judiciary Committee.

###

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.