Posted on 09/03/2015 9:43:23 PM PDT by VinL
Former governor Jeb Bush said that Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk jailed for contempt of court after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, doesn’t have the authority to defy the courts.
“She is sworn to uphold the law, and it seems to me that there ought to be common ground, there ought to be big enough space for her to act on her conscience and — now that the law is the law of the land — for a gay couple to be married in whatever jurisdiction that is,” Bush told reporters in New Hampshire.
Davis’s case and Bush’s response are emblematic of a tactical question that has divided Christian conservatives since the Supreme Court invalidated traditional-marriage laws, with some activists adopting a posture of limited acquiescence and others calling for outright defiance of the judiciary.
With the presidential primary season under way, it’s a debate that could affect the allegiances of the social conservatives who tend to dominate the Iowa Republican caucuses. Davis, in an attempt to resist the Supreme Court’s ruling while avoiding accusations of discrimination, is refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone in Rowan County, Ky., and she is refusing to allow her assistants to do so as well.
“The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order,” U.S. District Court Judge David L. Bunning said. “If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.”
Senator Ted Cruz, whose presidential prospects depend largely on attracting the evangelical voters who propelled George W. Bush to victory in 2000 and 2004, issued a stentorian endorsement of Davis. “We are a country founded on Judeo-Christian values, founded by those fleeing religious oppression, and seeking a land where we could worship God and live according to our faith, without being imprisoned for doing so,” he said Thursday. “I call upon every believer, every Constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis.
Stop the persecution now.” Former Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, was similarly strident. “Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubts about the criminalization of Christianity in this country,” he tweeted.
Bush refused to endorse such characterizations of the case: As I said, I think a big, tolerant country ought to be able to forge a consensus. This doesn’t have to be all resolved in Washington. This ought to be resolved at the local level where you find common ground, where a person, clearly based on her religious convictions, should be able to act on her conscience and have people not be discriminated against.
Bush has the political misfortune of using the same rhetoric that Hillary Clinton and Democratic proponents of gay marriage are using to denounce Davis. That’s a mainstream, though hardly unanimous, attitude among social conservatives. “A religious accommodation, like religious liberty in general, is not absolute,” the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, one of the most prominent traditional-marriage advocates, wrote Thursday. “There are ways in which public policy can create a win-win situation: where all eligible couples can receive a license and where as many employees as possible can be accommodated.” And yet, Bush has the political misfortune of using the same rhetoric that Hillary Clinton and Democratic proponents of gay marriage are using to denounce Davis. “Marriage equality is the law of the land,” Clinton tweeted. “Officials should be held to their duty to uphold the law — end of story.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423555/jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-denounce-kim-davis
You can uphold the law and not toss people in jail. Jeb is an idiot.
By the way, soon they will be doing that to parents who don’t vaccinate their kids.
Judges run amok.
As James Madison once said, "Before one can be a member of Civil Society, one must be subject to the Governor of the Universe."
Jeb Bush (Fla, Democrat)
You can uphold the law and not toss people in jail. Jeb is an idiot.
By the way, soon they will be doing that to parents who don’t vaccinate their kids.
Judges run amok.
“It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Who's law? God's law? Nature's law?
Jeb, what law is she breaking?
She is in jail, not for breaking any law, but for failing to heed the judges command. She is in jail for insubordination to a man with a god-complex, not a law.
Jeb, is it theoretically possible for a judge to break the law in their ruling? Can a judge violate the constitution? how about Natural law? God's law? Under what theory of authority can a judge rule with contempt toward constitution, natural law or God's law? Jeb, is it ever necessary to disobey a a judge, king or parliament? Was the American war for Independence just or illegal according to your theory? Was opposition to the Nazi's lawful? Moral? Was the starvation of Terry Schivo legal? Moral? Is the civil magistrate a minister of God? Is it a social contract? If of God shouldn't God's law be the highest law? If a social contract was not that contract violated when the USSC ruled against the will of the people as expressed by their representatives and in every state in which there was a referendum? What is this rule of law of which you speak, it seems like the rule of judges who are not under the law. Have you ever read Lex Rex (I'm pretty sure there is a Spanish translation available at amazon)? Do you agree that the magistrate is subject to the laws of the nation or do you believe that the magistrate is above the law rex-lex?
I can hear Trump saying precisely that.
This guy is a cartoon....utter fool.
He allowed Terri Schiavo to die, nothing this man does surprises me anymore
I predict Bush is going to drop 2 or 3 percentage points in the polls. Trump is missing a golden opportunity if he doesn’t study this and come out strong for upholding Christian beliefs.
HEY !!! Jebbie !!!
Mayors and officials in your sanctuary cities are ‘Sworn to Uphold the Law’ immigration laws, but you are delighted that they don’t...
Your little buddies need to be arrested and toss in jail until they agree to arrest and deport illegal aliens..
LOL 10 dollars says he picks it and 50 says he eats it.Any takers?
I agree. All of our candidates should come to her defense.
Things certainly have a way of clarifying though. Bush and Fiorina have certainly outed themselves...
Nope, sorry, not good enough. This is NOT "the law of the land." No such law was passed. What WAS passed, in Kentucky, is a law that prohibits marriage between persons of the same sex.
So, another candidate off my list. Let's see, that makes Bush, Christie, Fiorina, Graham, Kasich, Pataki, and Trump I won't vote for.
You know what? He is the only candidate I could see saying that very thing.Nobody else.
FY JB
Jeb Bush is evidently clueless (deliberately ignoring?) that the only “law” that Ms Davis has broken, imo, is to ignore the so-called right to gay “marriage” that corrupt federal courts are wrongly legislating from the bench, literally on a case by case basis.
In fact, not only have federal judges stolen legislative powers to create such a “law,” but they are breaching the Founding States’ division of state and federal government powers by stealing 10th Amendment-protected state powers in order to establish such a bogus right.
Note that federal judges are getting with this because they are undoubtedly confident that the post-17th Amendment ratification Senate will not work with the House remove them from the bench.
The ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and corrupt senators and activist judges along with it.
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