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What Hill Do We Die On, Then? (Kim Davis and Religious Liberty)
American Conservative ^ | SEpt 4, 2015 | Rod Dreher

Posted on 09/04/2015 4:15:38 PM PDT by yongin

have said these past couple of days that as gay rights and the ideology at its heart continues to conquer our culture, I expect us small-o orthodox Christians to have to take a hard, sacrificial stand against the state and society, for the sake of religious liberty. Kim Davis’s situation, I’ve said, is not the hill to die on.

The reason for this is certainly contestable, but here it is, in a nutshell.

1. Kim Davis’s position is unwinnable. Nobody seriously expects her to get gay marriage overturned, or even to succeed in carving out a special zone of protection for public officials who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to carry out lawful decisions of the courts. Even if we believe that the Obergefell decision lacks moral legitimacy, there can be no doubt that as a matter of legal procedure, the Supreme Court’s decision is the law. Our side lost that battle decisively. Kim Davis’s stance, while it may be personally courageous, is going to result in another defeat, because it cannot be otherwise in our system. The only point of backing it is to flip the bird to the state and to the broader culture — something I have great sympathy for, but it’s a pointless gesture that can only hurt us in the battles to come.

(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Kentucky
KEYWORDS: homosexualagenda; idiotauthor; kimdavis
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To: HiTech RedNeck
The aspiration to do that doesn’t come from heaven, whatever else might

That may be true...but above all I am a harsh realist who is generally very good at anticipating problems and dealing with them. I am just trying to be real here on this topic, because the only other option as I see it would be to submit to a amoral life and a wicked country of statist tyrants and a docile sheep like people... I cannot....I will not live that way.

201 posted on 09/04/2015 10:16:41 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: Cold Heat

It’s easy to use “realism” as an excuse for anti-God things... just sayin’... be-ness is not the same as ought-ness....


202 posted on 09/04/2015 10:17:50 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Dog, and a horse..


203 posted on 09/04/2015 10:18:10 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: Cold Heat

Subject to an amoral life without being the amoral king of the hill yourself?

Kind of limits the options huh?


204 posted on 09/04/2015 10:18:47 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I try to do God’s work as I see it when the opportunity arises.

Perhaps we all might have different jobs to do. I am a defender of the constitution, have been since I took that oath in 1969 to join the US Army. I also defend, when needed, good people when I can help.

I am planning to be at that rally in Kentucky on Tuesday.


205 posted on 09/04/2015 10:22:57 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Well, If you mean that I would not be happy as a passive bystander....I would say you are correct..


206 posted on 09/04/2015 10:25:16 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
be-ness is not the same as ought-ness....

You got a smile out of me with that..

The last time I heard a quote similar to that was in a Baptist church.

I went to many different denominations as a young man but I never found a home in one. You can call me a Deist.

You can probably tell by my personae that I am very independent and I am not a pacifist. But I am not a mean old sod either. I suppose I am a warrior in the classic sense. I was a leader in the Army but I choose to stay disengaged today for the most part and choose my battles and tasks as they arise. I was also self employed, but retired now.

However, I now have a task, and that is to try to save this country, and if it takes the destruction of it to save it, that is what needs to be done. I plan to deal with those issues as they arise because life has a way of destroying all plans before you can implement them.

207 posted on 09/04/2015 10:43:38 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: usconservative

I really can’t take credit for that post...it was the remainder of one I posted with this link back thread a bit...but the thread moved too quick, and discussion, that I forgot to link the second part....so here’s the source which I found his entire take so interesting...as you did. Do check it out as his entire writing brings it together so nicely I thought....

https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2015/09/the-age-of-disobedience/


208 posted on 09/04/2015 11:16:26 PM PDT by caww
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To: caww

Yes, that is quite good.

I am going to share that with some Christian friends of mine who seem to have their collective heads up their bung holes.


209 posted on 09/04/2015 11:29:43 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

....”even they (the left) understand some fundamental principles, albeit used inappropriately”....

I don’t think the left understands at all....they aren’t interested in understanding, all they do is ‘manipulate’ everything that they desire interlock into their line of thinking/agenda..and then call it good....even though it’s the complete opposite!....They use the highest form of deception because the population is so easily deceived... They don’t want or have to understand any principles...they create their own reality and if you aren’t agreeable your a bigot, racist and or breaking the law....

The Davis case is a perfect example.....let me enlarge on this a bit....

Long before the issue on marriage between a man and woman was ‘redefined’ by the courts or decisions determined, the left’s people ‘were ISSUING marriage licenses to gay couples’....which was ‘breaking the established law’...and they were were NOT arrested or taken away in chains as Davis was....and they certainly weren’t arrested for not doing their job as the law demanded.

Just like Kim Davis those ‘elected’ Democrats ‘justified their lawlessness’ by citing their own conscience and beliefs about right and wrong rather than deferring to the ‘actual’ laws of his state......so the laws meant nothing to them.

But now the lefts concern is with strict adherence to gay marriage laws as a ‘new’ passion of progressives.......“We’ve progressed,” they chime.... “The law has changed to be good so we care about the rule of law now.”

Here’s a couple:

In 2013...D. Bruce Haines, an official in Montgomery County Pennsylvania, started ‘issuing’ gay “marriage” licenses when the law DID NOT permit it.

In 2004 ...Mayor Gavin Newsome of San Francisco AND Mayor John West of New Paltz, New York both demanded marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples...long before” marriage had been redefined in their states.

So just like the illegals storm through our borders...that is all the left/progressives do regarding laws and our constitution.


210 posted on 09/04/2015 11:46:32 PM PDT by caww
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To: Cold Heat

I’ve saved it also....I read some other works he has as well...he’s pretty solid from what I’ve seen thus far....


211 posted on 09/04/2015 11:47:46 PM PDT by caww
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To: caww

The hypocrisy of the Fed courts is just unbelievable.

This simply cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. We have to act and do it with courage. Then keep doing it.


212 posted on 09/04/2015 11:56:43 PM PDT by Cold Heat (For Rent....call 1-555-tagline)
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To: Cold Heat; Jim Robinson

If that’s Trumps Rally do be mindful if he mentions again about “the law is the law” regarding Davis.

I say this because Hillary, Obama’s spokesman, Joe Biden, and Sanders are all saying that same phrase, while the rest of the candidates are supporting Davis’s right to stand on this issue......

It’s important to discern Trump on this because when Dred Scott and Roe had passed ,and then with the damage done, the Progressives/Left USED “the shield of the “rule of law” in order to ensure that their ‘lawless acts’ were enforced and respected without exception........it’s a tactic they always resort to....I’m not at all comfortable Trump is using it as well instead of taking a stand on this issue....

I suspect once he talks with Cruz he’s going to at least mellow on that...if not he’s in the wrong ball park. So people need to listen.


213 posted on 09/05/2015 12:09:30 AM PDT by caww
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To: Cold Heat; EternalVigilance

I agree with what Eternal Vigilance wrote regarding a coup de’ tat on our court systems....I believe also that this is what Cruz has referenced so often without actually telling the people this, although he’s said pretty everything but that.......he has to be careful as he’s in the lions den in Washington....... But he was very quick to come to Davis’s defense...I suspect he’s already been in contact with her defense team.....which from what I saw is very good and solid....we need to be praying mightily for them IMO....this case is treading on the territory of the enemy of mens souls he thought he won....the air “stinks” with deception.


214 posted on 09/05/2015 12:20:34 AM PDT by caww
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To: yongin
1. Kim Davis’s position is unwinnable. Nobody seriously expects her to get gay marriage overturned, or even to succeed in carving out a special zone of protection for public officials who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to carry out lawful decisions of the courts. Even if we believe that the Obergefell decision lacks moral legitimacy, there can be no doubt that as a matter of legal procedure, the Supreme Court’s decision is the law. Our side lost that battle decisively. Kim Davis’s stance, while it may be personally courageous, is going to result in another defeat, because it cannot be otherwise in our system. The only point of backing it is to flip the bird to the state and to the broader culture — something I have great sympathy for, but it’s a pointless gesture that can only hurt us in the battles to come.

This is how we have become what we have become - if one cannot win a war with a single battle, then don't fight the battle.

What does the author think will get used up in the battles that lead to eventual victory - can't run out of bullets or ideas but if we don't fight the battles there will be so much "precedence" that future battle will be rendered irrelevant and bullets will be the only thing left.

Kind of like a Star Trek soldier with atomic-powered laser weapons crying out "Keep your powder dry and don't fire until the enemy lays down and surrenders".

215 posted on 09/05/2015 3:39:59 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: caww

There are also righty flavors of evil too, lest we forget.

It is not politics but God that creates the true virtue.


216 posted on 09/05/2015 6:09:25 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: trebb

If people can get us to confine our thinking into little boxes, then they have enslaved us already... with chains that they don’t even have to forge because we will be forging them ourselves.

The conventional wisdom is for the lazy steady state of America. That could last only until it bowled a real gutterball, like it just has.


217 posted on 09/05/2015 6:12:31 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: EternalVigilance; Cold Heat
Any positive human law or statute that violates the laws of nature and nature's God, or our Constitution, is already null and void

Just catching up with your excellent dialogue.

One thing that keeps coming up in my thoughts:

The Left (and a lot of otherwise normal people) believe that the body of Supreme Court jurisprudence ADDS to the Constitution, as if this were a third, unwritten Article V process for amending the document. That these opinions, in toto, are Midrash or Mishnah to the Constitution's Torah.

The problem with this is the use of exclusive terms in the document itself, like "ALL Legislative powers herein granted".

The elaborate Article V processes for changing the Constitution would have been unnecessary if the authors (and, more importantly, the ratifiers) had intended a body that could change it through simple majority voting based on "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" or "the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life", or some other such nonsense.

The point, of course, is that most would wish to remain blind to the fact that the Republic is overthrown, and that most of our conversations about our Liberties are meaningless in light of this fact.

218 posted on 09/05/2015 6:38:53 AM PDT by Jim Noble (You walk into the room like a camel and then you frown)
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To: Cold Heat
It has to be created, nurtured, with a series of catalyst events.. Some of those events my be coming

Yes.

219 posted on 09/05/2015 6:40:01 AM PDT by Jim Noble (You walk into the room like a camel and then you frown)
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To: Jim Noble

I think the founders would throw a fit, or maybe another revolution, if they saw headlines proclaiming that the Supreme Court had ‘legalized” this or that or the other thing, when they quite emphatically ceded no such authority to the judiciary.

And that’s just the process side of things.

If they saw the abominable, immoral, daily slaughter of little babies, or sodomites pretending to be “married,” they would become warlike quite quickly, I think.

And they would be devastated that their posterity could have turned out to be so wicked and stupid.


220 posted on 09/05/2015 6:49:28 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
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