Posted on 09/09/2015 9:35:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When the ACLU of Colorado likened a baker who won't supply cakes for gay weddings to a police officer who refuses to protect a church or synagogue, it blurred the distinction between private action and state action, which is vital to a free society. Conservatives who defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who last week went to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, are making the same mistake. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said a federal judge's decision to hold Davis in contempt of court amounted to "the criminalization of a Christian for believing in the traditional definition of marriage." He warned that pastors, photographers, caterers and florists who decline to participate in gay weddings could receive similar treatment.
"We must defend religious liberty and never surrender to judicial tyranny," Huckabee said. "This is a reckless, appalling, out-of-control decision that undermines the Constitution of the United States and our fundamental right to religious liberty."
Other Republican presidential contenders likewise framed Davis' refusal to comply with the Supreme Court decision overturning state bans on gay marriage as an exercise of the religious freedom protected by the First Amendment. "I think it's absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty," said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was even more emphatic. "Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny," Cruz said in a statement. "Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America."
As my Reason colleague Scott Shackford noted, Cruz seems to have forgotten about a long line of Christian women who were arrested for living according to their faith as they understood it, including abolitionists, integrationists, alcohol prohibitionists, peace activists and death penalty opponents. More to the point, Davis was not arrested for living according to her faith; she was arrested for trying to impose her faith on others.
The government, unlike private businesses, is constitutionally obligated to treat all citizens equally under the law. Last June, in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court said that obligation means states must issue marriage licenses to couples without regard to their sexual orientation.
Many conservatives disagree with that decision. Huckabee even likens it to Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision upholding slavery. Because Obergefell, whatever the merits of its legal reasoning, expands liberty rather than contracting it, that comparison strikes me as inapposite, to say the least. Refusing to recognize gay marriage is hardly a moral cause on par with ending slavery.
In any case, as a representative of her state's government, Davis is obligated to comply with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection guarantee, just as county clerks who objected to marriages between people of different races (even on religious grounds) were obligated to issue licenses for such marriages after the court concluded that bans on miscegenation violated that principle. If Davis cannot in good conscience issue marriage licenses to gay couples, the honorable thing for her to do would be to resign.
People cannot, in the name of religious liberty, insist on keeping a job when they are unwilling to perform the duties it entails. That goes for private as well as government employees. If Davis took a job that required her to photograph gay weddings or bake cakes for them, she would have no right to reject those tasks on religious grounds and expect to keep the job.
The situation would be different if Davis started her own bakery or photography business. In that case, she should be (and in Kentucky would be) free to turn away work related to gay weddings based on her religious objections to such unions.
The ACLU is wrong to argue that such a refusal is essentially the same as unequal treatment by the government. So is Mike Huckabee.
-- Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
“People cannot, in the name of religious liberty, insist on keeping a job when they are unwilling to perform the duties it entails.”
_____________________________________________________
This is just a repackaged defense that Nazi officials used; the old “I was just following orders”.
I on the other hand expect Public Officials to refuse immoral orders.........it’s their duty.
The political editor for Town Hall, Guy Benson, is a proud homo. Megyn Kelly rejoiced by helping him out of the closet in an interview on her show earlier this year.
Based upon what law?
Nature and nature’s God designed the human race and the natural institution of marriage. It is a balance of nature—50% males and 50% female. Yin and Yang as the Chinese have noted.
You cannot redesign the human family or the human institution of marriage, this would be a disaster. If some people lack the imagination to perceive the future danger then they should be sent to the dunce corner.
Why did you think that?
Dittoes.
NO Kentucky statute makes any specification that these so-called “gay marriage” be recognized, that was an opinion issued by persons far removed from Kentucky.
I thought that’s what the contempt hearing was? No? She didn’t fight the charge?
She should have and she should have challenged the word “lawful” as pertains to judge’s duty to enforce certain laws.
Very fitting that this post is right above the post of Bob Barr’s blog on the same forum. Hey Bob, I’m sure you were all over they one too.
Our States and counties are our last line of governmental defense against tyranny.
Police and firemen who refuse to do their jobs are wrong, but so is comparing their duty to bakers and county clerks.
Which ones began their careers knowing their job descriptions would require servicing demanding homos?
and the gay pride movement doesnt have rights to show their ways in OUR faces....
I vote for that!!!!
Wrong. She was arrested for resisting others who tried to impose their faith on her.
Sullum is wrong. She wasn’t “trying to impose her faith” on anybody.
“Five Supreme Court Justices have no right to impose their view of marriage on others.”
The REAL story
The Supreme Court has no right to rule that 2 + 2 = 5. Only the tyranny described in the George Orwell novel 1984 actually believed that they could make people say that 2 + 2 = 5. Remember the chilling scene in which Winston is tortured until he repeated what his torturers wanted him to say “2 + 2 makes 5”.
This is what the Supreme Court is doing to us. They are forcing us to accept something that is untrue and insane.
I would also like to see a case based on the definition (or lack thereof) of "gay marriage." As far as I know, no one has defined "gay marriage" or explained how it fits into the context and purpose of actual marriage.
Townhall gone Sodomite?
IIRC Sullum was one of the writers at REASON along with belligerent pagan Virginia Postrel whose relentless contempt for cultural traditions and my own Christian faith led me to jump ship from what was clearly devolving into a leftist rag, where it has pretty much stayed. Whenever NR veers into the truth these days it is an accident. I expect nothing useful out of them with nitwits like Charles Cook and expect them to ditch David French almost any time now.
She did do her job. What you have is judgical activism both SCOTUS and the local fed court. He was telling her to do her job by following laws that don’t exist in Kentucky.
He threw here in jail for several days....and it backfired big time.
Wrong. Davis was jailed because she dare uphold the Kentucky state constitution. By her actions, she was also refusing to facilitate sin. She wasn't imposing anything on anybody.
How many times have judges overturned the votes of millions of people.
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