What Hill Do We Die On, Then? (Kim Davis and Religious Liberty)

American Conservative ^ | SEpt 4, 2015 | Rod Dreher

[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.

[foreverfree]

bump

[jpsb]

The author is a fool and a coward.

[EternalVigilance]

The writer’s argument is built on the fallacy that because a court says something it is “the law.”

Every principle this country was built upon says the exact opposite.

And the Constitution conveys no such authority to the courts.

[Lopeover]

I understand that this these moral issues are important. Life is sacred. Though out history marriage has always been between a man and a woman. I get it. Only these aren’t the issues for victory, a good marketer knows their audience.

[right way right]

If Trump knows his market he will revisit his stated opinion on this issue.
I hope he does that.

[jpsb]

I agree, this is the battle are we are on good ground.

[caww]

...”the Constitution conveys no such authority to the courts”...

I’m interested can you elaborate when you can take a moment please...and thank you. I tried to find something on that but that’s constitution “reading” laws which can often be too dutch for me!

[Lopeover]

This is more Ted’s issue.

[jpsb]

I got “on line” in 1985 when I worked at NASA JSC

[EternalVigilance]

"[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments."

-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 78, June 14, 1788

[caww]

Very interesting post....thank you....

I especially liked the part...”Clerk Davis is the duly elected clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky and derives her authority from the citizens of Rowan Country. She remains the Clerk and the tyrant judge can not remove her from office, and he can not order her under duress to issue lawful marriage certificates.....

.... Furthermore, none of her underlings can do so either, since she has not authorized them to do so. Thus, the marriage certificates that are being issued now without her authority are null and void”...............

So it would then appear HER authority is being challenged when the office has gone ahead and issued licenses.

[EternalVigilance]

"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."

-- President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

[Vision Thing]

The guy who wrote this is as cowardly as jeb.

[EternalVigilance]

“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

[EternalVigilance]

“[A]ll men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator.”

— Samuel Adams

[EternalVigilance]

“Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence.”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad 2m.

[caww]

Then how is it the courts are doing just that? or it appears to be....if they have no influence?

It just appears our courts, Judges, and Government are operating as they want to determine using laws and reasons which though might seem to prove their positions do not in fact.....with the attitude lets just see who will oppose after the fact...few oppose when it comes down to it.

[EternalVigilance]

“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment ...”

— Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 - 47 B.C.

[EternalVigilance]

“Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence.”

— Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

[caww]

Those quotes are just great....I hope that others chime in here....thank you again....