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.
..and the ‘gay pride movement’ doesn’t have rights to show their ways in OUR faces....
Five Supreme Court Justices have no right to impose their view of “marriage” on others.
The courts have no constitutional authority to overturn thousands of years of natural law!!
What law did she violate? Is a question that no one wants to answer.
How can a ruling by the SC become the law of the land?
The author is wrong. The Governor and AG of KY violated the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the federal RFRA, placing Davis in the position of either violating her conscience or refusing to issue marriage licenses.
If the state is violating its laws, then the person who stands up for their rights is well within the bounds of the law.
The author tacitly supports a religious test for the office of KY County Clerk.
(But the author is correct in that there is NO excuse for hounding private businesses at all!!)
Kim Davis upheld the law of Kentucky, which she was elected and likely sworn to defend. How hard is that to understand? Unless the Ky. legislature changes it, the law is still in effect.
Men and sheep should be able to receive marriage licenses. /sarc
Davis ought to base her case on her duty to uphold the laws enacted by the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
....another hit piece against Kim Davis on Townhall.com?
I thought it was a conservative site.
Contempt of court.
Whether or not she was morally right or wrong in refusing to issue marriage licenses, once she received a court order to desist, she (or the county) should have secured legal representation to fight the contempt charge.
By continuing to show up for work and refusing to do her job, she stuck her thumb in the eye of the court, and as a result of the contempt charge, got her ass stuck in jail.
“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.”
SHE DID!
USSC can only void laws not make them up or change them. KY’s marriage laws were voided, so there is a void, i.e. no law. Kim Davis did not issue marriage licenses because marriage has no definition in KY or any state that hasn’t passed sodomite marriage.
Furthermore, USSC and federal gov. has no jurisdiction here because their powers are enumerated and jurisdiction over marriage is not an enumerated power.
Federal government is an evil entity, delenda est!
RE: I thought it was a conservative site.
If you peruse the Townhall site, they have columnists on BOTH sides of the issue,
The pieces supporting Kim Davis are already posted at FR.
Shove it, Jacob. Equating racism with abiding by the tenants of Holy Matrimony won't fly. God's Law supercedes the Law of the Land.
The law is not only an ass but a very selective ass.
That’s how I see it.
That’s my questions exactly. If that’s the case we can do away with Congress and let SC tell us how to live. I thought the SC ruling would be a mandate to Kentucky legislature to overturn their law but she would be within her rights until that time.
Marriage is government licensed sodomy.
The institution has been corrupted by America, The Corrupt.
It no longer has any value.
Another libertardian queer friendly idiot heard from.
I can see why he writes for Reason. But why would Townhall print this BS?
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