[yongin]

2. This is because the cause of religious liberty will become synonymous in the public’s mind with a government official refusing to obey the law because it conflicts with her Christian beliefs. It matters a great deal that Kim Davis is an official of the state. By definition, her role is to execute the laws of the state. Many people, even many conservatives who may well oppose Obergefell, and who care about religious liberty, hold it to be unreasonable to expect state officials to reserve the right to decide which of those laws they will enforce. The political danger here is that when the public hears “religious liberty,” they will think about Kim Davis and her special pleading for a right that, if it existed, would mean anarchy. Angry Christians should consider how they would feel if “religious liberty” meant that a sharia-observant Muslim elected official refused to grant a building permit to a congregation for a new church because it conflicted with his religious beliefs. This is how many people in this post-Christian country — and it is that — see us re: Kim Davis.

3. The day is fast coming when we will have to fight big and important battles that have not yet been decided. When that happens, we will need the support of fair-minded Americans who may disagree with us on gay marriage, but who still, in some way, hold to the unfashionable belief that religious liberty really does matter. If we have wasted our already-diminishing political capital on vain protest gestures like Kim Davis’s stance, we are going to find it much harder to win the legal and political contests to come.

So, if Kim Davis isn’t a hill to die on, what is? It’s a fair question. Broadly speaking, my answer is this: when they start trying to tell us how to run our own religious institutions — churches, schools, hospitals, and the like — and trying to close them or otherwise destroy them for refusing to accept LGBT ideology. This is a bright red line — and it’s a fight in which we might yet win meaningful victories, given the strong precedents in constitutional jurisprudence.

But court decisions do not come from some Platonic realm; judges are shaped by the same cultural forces that shape all of us. Many, many Americans — certainly those in the media, and other opinion-shaping institutions — see our stance as motivated solely by bigotry, and therefore morally illegitimate. These judges, and the elected representatives who appoint them, will lose the ability to understand why “bigotry” should be tolerated. Similarly, we are already losing many Christian institutions — like colleges and universities — who have embraced the new order, and who by their example, signal to judges and the wider culture that Christianity is compatible with affirming LGBT ideology. More and more, the small-o orthodox Christians are going to be seen as being weird, backwards holdouts.

[wastoute]

Die on the hill in yer front yard. If you go looking for a hill the guy on your right will be FBI and the guy on your left will be ATF.

[Lopeover]

The winning hill: illegal immigration. It is the winning issue.

...“Democrats have opened our borders to all manner of horrific Third World violence, crime, and disease. The GOP has supported and endorsed this vile activity every single step of the way. Trump has tapped into the fury of the American people over the unrelenting anti-American NWO push of our paid employees in government. Trump could win this on this one issue alone. Americans are tired of being betrayed by their government on both sides of the aisle.”...

[morphing libertarian]

The line was drawn when the USSC ruled a few months ago. Didn’t you know this would be the consequence?

[W.]

It’s not what hill WE die on, it’s what hill we make THEM die on.

[Hostage]

Why are their so many moronic opinion peddlers in this day and age?

Listen Rod Dreher, Rosa Parks was also in a lose-lose unwinnable situation but she had had enough. It wasn’t that she thought that she could win or that anyone thought she could win, it was that she had had enough and wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Kim Davis reached the same point, she has had enough. And just as Rosa Park’s defiant stand led to a revolution in race relations, Kim Davis’ defiance will be on the history pages as an event that led to reigning in the abuses of the US Supreme Court.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

In our culture, I chose Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Haven’t looked back. Will die with my face toward the battle. In the greater battle, I chose God v. Satan. Will live forever.

[azcap]

They are right. Legally and politically speaking this is not the case to build our counterattack around. The cases of the cake bakers and similiar private individuals who have had their religious liberties violated give us better ground. Kim Davis is a martyr. She should be honored, recognized and supported financial, morally and spiritually. More people need to step forward and put their values before their careers and personal freedom like she has done. That is how the moral war will be won but the legal war is not to be won with her case.

[Moorings]

I don't think Rod Dreher will ever find a suitable hill. Has he found one in the last twenty years? The picture of Kim Davis being led away in cuffs and leg shackles was... oh well too sad.

This thread explains the case well.

[gov_bean_ counter]

First pubbie to quote MLK and Letter from a Birmingham Jail on the value of civil disobedience in fighting immoral laws climbs up my list!

[Hugin]

I agree. Also she is not allowing any marriage licenses to be processed for anyone. How many couples have planned and paid for weddings, at the cost of thousands of dollars, and now can’t get a license? How does that square with her personal religious liberty? And how are those tearful stories going to be portrayed in the media? She will be widely portrayed as a crackpot who is ruining people’s lives over her personal beliefs. And it will stick with a lot of people, and not just liberals.

[jwalsh07]

It is and never has been my goal to die on a hill for my principles. Like the General said, let the other sons of bitches do the dying. Figuratively of course.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I often think these laws that are repugnant to Christians are designed that way to get Christians out of the government. Same for the military. Sideline the Christians, make them “non-persons”.

I feel Christians are living in a movie combination of the original PLANET OF THE APES and FELINI-SATYRICON. A “madhouse” of perversion.

[Don Corleone]

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

"A trip of a thousand miles begins with the first step", Confucius

[cripplecreek]

You fight every battle or you lose.

[RginTN]

Don’t fight for the 1st amendment. Then don’t fight for the 2nd amendment. Then don’t fight to keep Separation of Powers intact.

Soon nothing to fight for cause the Left has taken it all away.

[DiogenesLamp]

Here is a very good rebuttal I saw at "Never yet melted."

A consensus appears to be developing among otherwise reasonable people that Kim Davis, of Rowan County fame, either needs to start issuing marriage licenses or quit her job.

For those just joining us, a county clerk in Kentucky is refusing to issue marriage licenses against her conscience and is also refusing to resign. Her name, which should be on a bronze plaque on the side of the courthouse, is Kim Davis. A federal judge has ordered her to appear in his courtroom Thursday to explain why Davis should not be held in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses.

But there is a difference between contempt of court and seeing that the courts have become contemptible. …

[Rod Dreher (9/1) wrote of Kim Davis’s stand: In the future, there will surely be hills worth dying on, so to speak, as Christians. This is not one of them.]

I want to begin by making an observation about that hill-to-die-on thing, but then move on to discuss the foundational principle that is at stake here. After that, I want to point out what it would look like if more government officials had the same understanding that Kim Davis is currently displaying — despite being opposed by all the intoleristas and also despite being abandoned by numerous Christians who admire her moxie but who don’t understand her moxie.

First, whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like a hill to die on from a distance. Up close, when the possible dying is also up close, it kind of looks like every other hill. All of a sudden it looks like a hill to stay alive on, covered over with topsoil that looks suspiciously like common ground.

So it turns out that surrendering hills is not the best way to train for defending the most important ones. Retreat is habit-forming. …

The point here is not just private conscience. The right to liberty of conscience is at play with florists, bakers, and so on. But Kim Davis is not just keeping herself from sinning, she is preventing Rowan County from sinning. That is part of her job.

Every Christian elected official should be determining, within the scope of their duties, which lines they will not allow the state to cross. When they come to that line, they should refuse to cross it because “this is against the law of God.” They should do this as part of their official responsibilities. This is part of their job. It is one of the things they swear to do when they take office.

This is nothing less than Calvin’s doctrine of the lesser magistrates (Institutes 4.20.22-32), which I would urge upon all and sundry as relevant reading material. And as Calvin points out, after Daniel — a Babylonian official — disobeyed the king’s impious edict, he denied that he had wronged the king in any way (Dan. 6:22-23).

[right way right]

This will be the hill that Trump's campaign dies on.

[Libloather]

[Lopeover]

Ya’ll have been praying for America to wake up. Well, they did. The issue is illegal immigration & Trump by virtue the he had the courage to say it!

We need to start winning, Gay Marriage is not the hill. 42 years later and heinous videos later and nothing has been done about abortion. These are not the winning issues. Sorry, but they are not.