WaPo:
Since June, when the Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed, Davis has asked to be excused from issuing marriage licenses to anyone on the grounds that licensing a same-sex marriage would violate her religious beliefs.
In doing so, the longtime public servant has evoked the anger of couples who say it’s their right to be married in their home county by the clerk whose salary comes from their tax dollars.
“I pay your salary,” David Moore insisted Tuesday, leaning over Davis’s desk after she refused to issue a license to him and his partner, David Ermold. “I pay you to discriminate against me right now, that’s what I’m paying for.”
“Do your job,” someone else yelled. As the argument became more heated, Davis walked back into her office and closed the door.
Davis isn’t the only clerk to reject the Supreme Court’s ruling, but she is certainly the most notorious. That’s in part because of a now viral video that Moore and Ermold filmed in July during their first attempt to obtain a marriage license in Rowan County.
But Davis is also the most outspoken of the holdout clerks — she has issued a statement explaining her stance on the issue and is being represented by the public interest law firm Liberty Counsel, which provides free legal assistance for “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life and the family,” according to its Web site. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the firm an “anti-LGBT hate group.”
An Apostolic Christian, Davis wrote in her statement that her refusal to license a gay marriage is “a Heaven or Hell decision.”
“I want to continue to perform my duties, but I also am requesting what our Founders envisioned — that conscience and religious freedom would be protected,” she continued. “That is all I am asking. I never sought to be in this position, and I would much rather not have been placed in this position.”
I’m all for religious liberty. I support bakers who do not discriminate against gay customers but who also do not believe in being forced to participate in servicing same-sex weddings. But Kim Davis’ situation is different. She works for the government. She holds an elected position paid for by the taxpayer of her district.
If she can’t follow the orders of the governor and the Supreme Court and in good conscience issue marriage licenses, then she should resign. That is her Constitutional right.
Don’t defend her. She is undermining the legitimate fight for religious liberty. And she is a Democrat. That point should be emphasized because her indefensible position is damaging to the conservative cause. Jindal is wrong. Huckabee is wrong. Rand Paul is wrong. Marco Rubio is wrong.
Carly Fiorina and Lindsay Graham have it right.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCz7gWebCSk[/youtube]
Don’t fight losing battles that make us look foolish.
*UPDATE* Just read that she’s been jailed, held in contempt of court.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
All Christians must accept the consequences of following their own consciences.
This clerk has accepted going to prison.
She is following the pattern set by Jesus, who was arrested, tried, convicted then executed.
She is following the example set by James, Jesus half brother who was arrested, tried then executed by an axe.
She is following the example set by John, Jesus ”favorite” apostle, who sat in prison for years after being tried and convicted.
The Apostle Paul sought Rome’s justice and we don’t know how that worked out.
So, she is in good company.
Her Christian conscience led to her being put behind bars.
As to her resigning, there’s a principle about fighting the fine fight for the faith that, while not a perfect parallel, applies: Death is looked upon as ”the last enemy.” As such it is fought against by Christians, not embraced.
Why should she resign?
By staying behind bars she lets the rule of men prove itself as opposed to the standards of God that she lives by.
If the law was changed after she held the position I have to not hold it against her for going with her very serious beliefs.
It doesn’t matter what her political party is or what her religion is. She’s a government administrator who is deliberately and openly defying the very law that it’s her job to administer. She doesn’t need to go to jail. She should either do the job that she’s paid to do or be fired. It’s a simple choice.
@Greg: Actually she has to be impeached to be removed from her job….short of contempt of court sending her behind bars.
@Greg:
Though I sympathize with her underlying right to religious freedom, and very much disagree with the SCOTUS ruling that led to this mess, it is a government job that under the current law obligates her to either perform her government duties, or resign and find a job that does not force her to violate her religious principles. I agree her situation is very different from a private business that has the right not to provide services in violation of religiously held beliefs of the owners. Personally, I chose my field of medical practice to ensure I would never be forced to violate my religious beliefs, and I get this clerk didn’t have to worry about violating her beliefs when she first took her current job – the requirements changed after she got the job. Regardless, she seems to understand the penalty for standing by her principles, and has made her choice to accept imprisonment rather than violate her beliefs.
What I do find highly disconcerting is the speed with which she has been imprisoned for violating the law, while Hillary is still avoiding the consequences of her illegal acts vis a vis her email server security violation shenanigans.
As a government employee she should resign for refusing to follow the rule of law even though she disagrees with it. After her resignation, all other personnel who receive a paycheck from the government should be held to the same standard and resign should they refuse to follow our laws and Constitution starting with Barak Hussein Obama.
@Greg: however you are one that would be the first one in line screaming about your beliefs.
She was given a way out of this without compromising her religious beliefs. Judge told her that SHE didn’t need to issue any marriage certificates but that her OFFICE did. Kim Davis ordered her deputy clerks not to issue any. Judge ordered Davis to rescind that order and allow the deputy clerks to issue them. Davis refused and was jailed for contempt. She was not jailed for her religious views, she was jailed for forcing her religious position on others (her deputy clerks) against their free will.
A law that is based on no legislation passed by Congress, and a clear overstep of SCOTUS authority.
The U.S. Constitution does not allow for the Supreme Court to make law, only determine the Constitutionality of laws passed by Congress.
And of course, we all know that every couple that visit a County Clerk’s office for the purpose of applying for a marriage license films that visit, right?
Anyone who gives credence to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far left organization that is rooted in Marxism, and which refuses to label Islamic groups, such as CAIR and ISNA, terrorist groups should never claim any conservative bona fides.
Have we so degenerated as a nation that signs will now be posted at government agencies that read “Please check your religious beliefs at the door.”? In today’s environment, FDR would have been rode out of D.C. on a rail for going on national radio prior to the Normandy invasion offering a prayer for victory. Have we forgotten how we blamed those Nazis that followed orders for the slaughter of over 6,000,000 people claiming they should have stood up to Hitler’s government and not carried out the Nazi government’s orders?
Remember, Kim Davis was elected before same sex marriage was [illegally] made legal by the SCOTUS. If the voters of her county disagree with her, they can initiate impeachment procedures. Putting her in jail will only garner sympathy for her.
Perhaps someone can point me to the part of the U.S. Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, that says we have a right to the free exercise of our religious beliefs, except when in a government job.
Why hasn’t she been fired? I think by putting her in jail they’re creating a martyr.
@drjohn:
She is an elected official. She would have to be impeached.
I am reminded of the Biblical passage in which Jesus replies that one should “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s”.
I consider sincere the notion that Kim Davis is cleaving unto a principle to which she unalterably adheres. Unfortunately, that principle has had a head -on collision with current reality. Just as Muslims working at Target stores have claimed religious objections to scanning and bagging bacon, so too does Kim Davis, in an albeit somewhat different context. Essentially, if you cannot carry out the duties of your position without violating your deeply held convictions, the answer is simple, if not completely gratifying. Change your principles, or find your happiness elsewhere.
Since it seems abundantly clear that Ms. Davis wold not consider altering her principles, she has a secondary choice. Spend an indefinite period of time held at the county gray bar hotel for contempt of court, or find another job. On the plus side, it could be that orange really is her best color.
@retire05:
I have to concur that this is the key element and a valid argument for her defence. The Supreme Court is not empowered to make law. Their express power is to rule on the Constitutionality of laws that have been made. Congress did not pass legislation to make gay marriage the law of the land. By judicial fiat, the Supreme Court Majority set aside the Constitution in order to assume powers not delegated to it.
Wordsmith, do you now too support going against the Supreme Law of the land, to steal the Constitutionally enumerated powers entrusted only to a specific branch of the three legs of government (Congress), in order to Judicially create federal law is now to be considered proper? (When such judicial abusive action is blatant in it’s violation against the Supreme Law of the Land?)
When the highest court in the land ignores the Constitutional limitations placed on it, and takes on powers that were only specifically entrusted to a separate but equal branch, it rules lawlessly and becomes an imperial, tyrannical court.
I won’t defend her not following the law; I can’t. However, we now live in a nation led by a President that has/had members of his administration that violated laws, did not enforce laws and illegally changed laws to fit their “beliefs” (sometimes called a “political agenda”). Furthermore, NO clerks who illegally issued illegal marriage licenses to same-sex couples before it was legal were ever sent to jail.
Yes, public servants should abide by the laws and do their jobs but we need to return to the days when everyone is universally expected to abide by laws, even those they don’t like or do not further their political agenda.
@crosspatch: That was the same “way out” offered to Catholic enterprises that could not provide insurance coverage for birth control; “hey, you ain’t doing it… the INSURANCE company is!” Problem is, among intelligent people, this doesn’t exactly wash.
In Amerika today, laws only apply when politics allow it. If it correlates the the liberal agendas, laws can and will be violated when necessary. The law and the Constitution only apply to political enemies.
@Me:
Unfortunately, marriage is under God’s purview, not Caesar’s. There is no mention of marriage in either the DOI or the Constitution, rather it is a issue left up to the states, and the people. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a federal marriage license.
There have been cases of Muslims suing their employers (the bacon issue being one) and the Disney case another. The difference in those cases being that the Muslim accepted the terms of employment when they hired on. The Kentucky County Clerk ran for office when same sex marriage was still illegal in Kentucky.
@Ditto:
The way I see it, the states should change their laws. They can stop issuing marriage licenses altogether and reinstate their “common law” laws with the caveat (liberals love caveats) that the common law would apply only to those couples who have naturally resulted in the birth of children. No children born of that relationship, no recognition of common law.
Then let Justice Kennedy enforce his illegal decision. He has no police power. He cannot force the decisions of the court and has no jurisdiction over the police powers of a state (the reason that the National Guard was sent to Little Rock to defy Governor Wallace). I doubt that Justice Kenney could find the power to send the National Guard to hundreds of county clerk’s offices all across the nation. There is already precedence for the refusal of Supreme Court rulings. See the Indian Removal Act.
@Bill:
Question: should public servants abide by the laws that were in existence when they swore an oath to protect and defend the laws of the state in which they were elected or should they be made to enforce the laws that are forced on the states by an out of control SCOTUS who has clearly violated its Constitutional limitations after they were elected?
Law enforcement officers and military have a right to not carry out an unlawful order. Why should elected officials have to adhere to a different standard? If Justice Kennedy thinks his opinion is a lawful order, let him enforce it.
The Congress can eliminate the marriage element of federal income tax filing. There is no actual benefit in filing “married” since the personal deduction for marriage is simply double the personal deduction filing single. One parent can use the personal deduction for children, the other for home mortgage interest. It then is a wash. Mathematically, it is the same.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of _______ according to law; and I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”
President 44 talking about “illegal immigration” : “…they did not break the law, it was an act of love… this was not a felony…” I guess this renders the oath an minor impediment at least and a useless formality at best, retire05.
sad how so many vote AGAINST their own values.
I do find it rather interesting in a disturbing way how quickly Davis was thrown in jail for holding to her priciples, while Gavin Newsome was never hit with co temlt charges for violating California law when he ordered his city clerks to issue illegal homogamous “marriage” licenses, or the lack of jail time for sanctuary city lawbreaking council members who flagrantly violate immigration laws. Compounding this politically differentiated treatment of national security violations by Petreus, or the sailor who had classified pictures of part of his sub, with the clear violations of Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents on her illegal server, and one sees a highly disturbing picture of political favoritism in enforcing the rule of law that seriously endangers the republic.
@Pete: Under the Obama administration, laws do not apply equally to all. Laws are to be used as a political sledge hammer.
@retire05:
The problem with the “She broke the law” argument is that there is no such law. The Supreme Court issued a ruling. Judicial rulings may carry the force of law but they are not law. The other problem is that the SCOTUS majority opinion by using dicta to “create a Pseudo-law” places the decision in violation of the Constitution’s limitations of powers.
While the court may hold her in contempt of court for not following a judicial ruling, the court can not hold her in violation of a law that doesn’t exist.
It interests me how many Christians want to impose their supposedly ”better” conscience in this relatively new (4 years) Christian woman.
I keep reading about how she could have done this-or-that instead.
She did ask to have her name removed from the licenses, but that was refused.
The judge had lesser options, too.
He could have authorized her underlings (who want to issue gay marriage licenses) to begin doing so.
He could have ordered the removal of her name from such licenses.
But he went with an extreme response.
People might have forgotten that we are NOT a ”Christian” nation.
Our government opposes God’s Kingdom as much as all of the rest of man made governments.
And the new Christian’s conscience might lead (in grey areas) them to do something a more mature Christian might not, but that is to be respected by the older Christians.
@Ditto #13:
That is exactly what they did. They ruled that the laws forbidding same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, and thus void. They did not write legislation. Legislators write legislation.
@Pete #19:
I agree, though I seem to recall that it wasn’t for want of the “right” TRYING. The Courts in California simply weren’t willing to take the case anywhere, and that is a recurring issue with the courts across the land. It isn’t only a Republican-Democratic political problem. It also appears in instances where the defendant has powerful political connections, and no judge wants to rock the boat. Justice really isn’t blind after all. It just has poor vision sometimes.
@Ditto #21:
Of course you are correct here, but you’d better watch out. Retire05 and the rest of her coven have been brainwashing the rest of you into believing that the SCOTUS “legislated from the bench,” effectively saying that their decision IS a piece of legislation, which it obviously is not.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: People don’t need a law telling them that they can eat hot-dogs. There are no laws saying otherwise. There WERE laws saying that same-sex couples could NOT marry, but those laws were found – right or wrong – to be unconstitutional, and are thus now void. In the absence of those prohibitions, gay couples can as easily marry as they can eat hot-dogs, and for the same reason: there is no valid law saying that they can’t.
@George Wells:
Ah… the point. As you wrote that, I guess you never considered why it is so easy to throw someone that opposes the left wing agenda while impossible to jail a liberals blatantly violating laws, some (like immigration and sanctuary cities violations) results in deaths of citizens.
No… wrong yet again. The laws (including the Defense of Marriage Act) stated that MARRIAGE is between A man and A woman. In order to get around that, the traditional definition of the word had to be changed.
Well, it’s not changed. It’s still the same. There just happens, for now, to be marriage and “marriage”.
No Georgie, don’t lie, The Majority SCOTUS decision did indeed legislate from the bench as the minority fully recognized in their opposing opinions. The SCOTUS majority created a “right to marriage ” from thin air with no legal reasoning beyond dicta to support it. There was no Constitutional Convention held as is required to change the Constitution and recognize this “right.” There is no mention in the Constitution regarding a “right to marriage” There was no Federal law passed by Congress and signed by President regarding a “right to marriage. Progressive lefties like you are saying it’s “the law of the land.” Yet none of you can pull up and provide the language of this “Law” because outside of the SCOTUS ruling no such “law” exists. Remember that Democrat leaning SCOTUS rulings also created Dred Scott and Segregation.
Following the law has become an ambiguous political choice. If you are in the ‘correct’ side of Liberalism, you have virtual immunity, but take a stand against Liberalism and you risk the wrath of the Liberal bench.
Perhaps the law has never been applied blindly and without prejudice, but power of the law is centered in Liberalism. Judicial decisions are predicated and predicted on the politics of the judge, and thus our system of justice makes a mockery of itself.
Our Supreme Court interprets the ‘Constitution’ after first applying a political prism. This isn’t justice; it’s a pathetic imitation of justice, directed by petty criminals who hide behind political ideologies to promote schemes of avarice and corruption.
You can sleep better, knowing a clerk in Kentucky is in jail indefinitely for opposing gay marriage. Hillary compromised unknown secrets to foreign hackers and she, Lerner and many others can refuse to cooperate with the courts without problems, but next week, gays will be married in Kentucky. So sleep soundly, the country is safe and in good hands.
@Skook #28:
I’m not sure that’s correct.
The majority of Republican-appointed judges who presided over gay-marriage court cases decided in favor of gay marriage. Their political… instinct?… didn’t compel them to side with their Democrat-appointed counterparts. They BOTH agreed – much more often than not – with the pro-gay-marriage arguments more than with the anti-gay-marriage ones, plain and simple. For that matter, Kennedy is a Republican-appointed, more-often-than-not-conservative-leaning SCOTUS justice who also happens to find validity in the same arguments that so many of the Republican justices at the circuit and appellate level agreed with. The other SCOTUS justices all seem to be politically directed, more often than not, but with four on each side, and with the swing vote USUALLY leaning conservative, how is it that you find such diabolical fraud coming from the high bench? It usually goes your way. Does it ALWAYS have to?
@Ditto #27:
It would seem that SCOTUS majorities have been “creating” a fundamental right to marry for well over a century. The concept is nothing new. It is recognized to be an integral component of the happiness everyone has a constitutional right to pursue, and while the right to eat hot-dogs isn’t specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it exists none-the-less, and for the same reason that the right to marry exists.
God Bless the Supreme Court!
Yes, it is well known here on Flopping Aces that Democrats always make mistakes and Republicans never do. What’s your point?
So why, again, do Republican presidents keep nominating Republican jurists to the bench who subsequently change their spots? Republican appointments are doing just as much liberal heavy lifting as Democratic ones. Since you make so much of blaming, how does this shake out?
@George Wells:
Odd that you did not post a link to the site where you gleaned your last entry.
Or did you not want everyone to know, that although you protest being part of the gay lobby, you seem quite familiar with websites that promote same sex marriage?
@retire05 #31:
I thought that Bill’s claim that THIS SCOTUS had invented the “right to marry” out of thin air was wrong. So I GOOGLE’d the question “Where did the “right to marry” come from, and got a whole lot of information that proved that Bill was wrong.
The stuff I “cut-and-pasted” was the most concise list of specifics I found, so I posted it. The veracity of each entry can be verified by researching the decisions cited. The source of the list is unknown to me and is irrelevant, as I checked enough of the citations to convince myself that the content was accurate. You can do the same. The content is in the public record.
Truth is truth. It doesn’t matter if the source is the Klu Klux Klan, the Communist Party, the Tea Party or George Wells.
@George Wells:
The truth is you’re dishonest. Very dishonest.
@Pete: Hillary aside, what about all the Sanctuary City Mayors and State Govenors that are still walking free…oh, not those federal laws, those a pro-future democrat.
@retire05 #33:
So having failed to find ANYTHING incorrect in my thoroughly informative post #30, you simply post your reflexive brain farts?
Not one, but two of them?
Why not simply acknowledge that Bill was wrong – probably because he has lost his memory somewhere along the long, winding path of his life – and not further discredit yourself.
Or is it that you have an impressive insult record to defend?
@George Wells: If four justices can be predicted, why do we need nine? Are their little notes of political prejudice so important? Why not have a single objective judge?
Unlike you, I am not taking sides. I find the system to be more and more corrupt and silly. The idea of a Supreme Court playing petty corrupt politics makes every decision suspect, for surely the Constitution wasn’t meant to promote silly partisan politics. Of course, Ginzberg manages to look for justification in Scotland’s Common law if justification evades her partisan position.
Consequently, it is law based on eight political hacks and one ‘swinger’. Yahoo, we have Supreme decisions based on the political prejudices of eight political hacks, who could save us their efforts, since the political punditry of the White House news services predict the outcomes of every important decision.
@Skook #36:
Well, for starters, I’m not sure how we could ever find ONE objective judge, much less nine.
If we DID manage to find one, what would keep that single, all-important and super-powerful person from being corrupted by the essentially absolute power that we’d be placing in his hands for life?
Would it be fair to have Kennedy as the sole arbiter of ultimate justice in America? Republicans would like that until he penned his decisions on gay rights, and then they’d want to impeach him or lynch him or worse. And what do you do when he goes senile? With nine SCOTUS justices, there is peer pressure to resign when the time comes. With just one “Supreme,” uggg!
You are correct that the system isn’t perfect. Welcome to the real world. No system is perfect. Over time, the top court has waxed liberal and it has waxed conservative. Had it stayed in one corner its whole life, I suspect it would not have survived the political pressure to dissolve it.
What side am I taking? I’m making observation on the decisions made by the courts, is all. I make predictions, and offer my reasons for making them. Sides? I have a vested interest in gay rights, but I’m not so biased that I don’t criticize gay activists when they go too far, and political correctness is WAY out of control in America, wouldn’t you agree?
And Scalia – darling of conservatives – is no less of a legal contortionist. After announcing in his Lawrence dissent that voiding criminalization of sodomy would remove any rational excuse NOT to let gays marry, he went right along arguing against gay marriage. Likely he is STILL fussing over it, in spite of the growing body of corroborating precedence. Is Thomas any better? Can Alito not be afraid of his shadow?
There. You fussed at a biased liberal, and I poked at several flawed conservative ones.
I don’t know how you’d maintain a proper balance on the Court over time without keeping them mixed up. Then, if you’re lucky, your average might work out OK, and it might not…
@George Wells: People have a right to do a lot of things that are not specifically defined in the Constitution. We have the right to go to work. We have the right to play. We have the right to go camping. As long as we are not disrupting the lives of someone else, our rights are practically limitless.
Anyone can get married… as long as they are marriable, that is, a man and a woman. This is because that is what marriage IS. I can’t BE a doctor because I am NOT a doctor. I can’t BE an airplane because I am NOT an airplane. The same goes with same-sex marriage; it cannot be because it is NOT marriage. It is something else… something different, because it IS different.
Enjoy your weak and tenuous “victory” over society for it just may not survive. A Republican victory in 2016 could also involve some retiring Justices which could result in the change in the composition of the SCOTUS. Perhaps with whatever is compelling Roberts to vote so erratically is removed, he will join a more conservative majority (he doesn’t seem to have a problem with going 180 degrees against his last decision at any given time) another challenge will have different results. Currently, all of the Democrat hopes rest in what the media can do for them as they have no viable candidates to offer; the Socialist Sanders, the criminal Hillary, the idiot Biden. Webb, the only semblance of an actual person on that side, hasn’t a chance in the rarefied liberal atmosphere.
We’ll see.
@Bill #38:
You make this pronouncement as if it is universally agreed to, and it is quite far from that. State legislatures have disagreed with it, state electorates have disagreed with it, most federal courts and a majority of the Supreme Court has disagreed with it, and the majority of Americans disagree with it.
Your argument, valid or not, has at best limited political support.
You are hoping that a change of political leadership (not necessarily a sure thing) will also produce a change in public support AND a change in the complexion of the Supreme Court. It MAY do both of those things, but that doesn’t mean that the SCOTUS would reverse itself on same-sex marriage.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that, no matter what happens with the politics and with the High Court, the Obergefell decision will not be overturned. You have already demonstrated that you reject my explanation of why this is, so I won’t bother to explain it again.
Just wait and see.
@George Wells: The idea of having one judge was sarcasm, but when pundits and everyday citizens accurately predict the rulings of individual justices, and like the man having the sushi place, they wait with baited breath to see how the swing vote will swing.
I will ask again, is this justice or silly partisan politics. Ginzberg’s efforts to write Scottish Common law into Supreme Court decisions was only an example to illustrate the ludicrous nature of the court and unfortunately set a precedent that will allow judges to write what ever they want into decisions; since, they no longer need pretenses to base their decisions on the Constitution, their precedents are pre-written available in a court of law, somewhere in the world. However, imagine the hue and cry if a decision had gone against gay marriage, based on Scottish Common Law; I doubt if you would be so cavalier in excusing such a decision as you have been in excusing Ginzberg’s behavior. I am sure that there are many instances to base decisions against homosexuality in Scottish Common Law, but no one else would have the audacity to bring them up. It would unleash a circus.
It’s not that I think the system swings from one political spectrum to the other, it does; it’s the corrupt political nature of the court that has soured me. I am not trying to get Conservative judges on the court, but I would prefer a more accurate and accountable system; a system that is actually based on the rule of law.
And here lies the crux of the matter: most Conservatives choose the rule of law and Liberals choose to alter the law to suit Leftist ideology. Thus, like the president stated, our Constitution is a flawed document; consequently, he implies, the Constitution needs to be altered to correspond with Leftist ideology.
Of course, the quickest and most efficient method of altering the document is through judicial activism.
@Skook #40:
Curious, isn’t it, how so many “conservatives” are rushing to support Kentucky court clerk – AND DEMOCRAT – Kim Davis, who clearly is having issues with following the rule of law. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that all laws are right, and neither am I suggesting that what Kim is doing is wrong. I’m merely pointing out that the question of choosing the rule of law isn’t exactly a black-and-white issue.
Pressing a “gotcha” question, are you? Then I will answer that it is as good a justice as we’ve figured out how to achieve. Like I said, nothing’s perfect.
Only because the liberal media panders to its constituency at least as much as the conservative media (and quite possibly more), and right at this moment, the majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage. Did Obama or Hillary support it when the public didn’t? Of course not, BECAUSE THEY’RE POLITICIANS! They constantly have one wet finger to the wind, testing its direction. It’s what they do. So what?
Every now and again, a politician comes along in one party or the other that is truly principled, but they’re rare. They usually get voted into oblivion for NOT paying attention to the fickle peccadilloes of the electorate.
If it WASN’T flawed, it wouldn’t have needed a bunch of amendments, now would it?
Quite true. The do-nothing congress certainly isn’t about to actually produce any meaningful legislation that DOESN’T need to be voided by a Supreme Court that has little sympathy for unconstitutional laws. And the President’s power to effect Executive Orders is always on thin ice, so who is left to fix what needs to be fixed? The “several” states? So that we end up with a patchwork legal crossword puzzle that’s worse than pre-Euro Europe to deal with?
I’ll take quick and efficient any day, thank you very much.
Kim Davis swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the Kentucky Constitution and the laws of the Bluegrass state. When she took her oath, United States law, the Kentucky Constitution and the Kentucky Revised Statutes all reflected the millennia-old definition of natural marriage: “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky.”
The Kentucky Legislature has yet to change this law one jot or tittle. Instead, five left-wing extremist lawyers in Washington, D.C., issued an opinion presuming to move the goalposts mid-game. Court opinions are not “the law of the land.” Judges don’t make laws – only the legislature can do that. Kim Davis is not defying the law; she is upholding it as codified.
Accordingly, she has repeatedly asked, “Under what law am I authorized to issue homosexual couples a marriage license?”
Neither Judge Bunning nor anyone else can answer.
Because no such law exists.
@1 DRAGON #42:
No, one doesn’t, not in the sense of a law that was enacted through the action of a legislature. But one such “law” doesn’t HAVE to exist. Presuming that there IS a Kentucky law that says heterosexuals can marry (man-to-woman), the swing-vote on the SCOTUS – the usually conservative Kennedy – had already decided that such anti-same-sex-marriage laws were unconstitutional. Reviewing such laws is what the SCOTUS does. The decision is consistent with the other recent SCOTUS decisions striking other laws that discriminate against homosexuals, so the most recent decision should come as no surprise.
The “law” Davis has to obey is the law of the land, because SCOTUS decisions carry the force of law and have the effect of law. That is the way it works. The SCOTUS decision isn’t legislation, but it IS law.
@George Wells:
No George. A SCOTUS decision is not law, it is a legal ruling. While a ruling can have the force of law, it can not make law. The court can rule that marriage can not just be between a man and woman, it can not create thereof a law requiring marriage licenses be given to it’s opinion. Ego, there has been no law broken. The Judge could hold her in contempt of court, but it can not order her to give out marriage licenses. She stopped her offices from issuing any marriage licenses. Therefore she was not discriminating, she was refusing to perform a small part of her job. The court did not issue a Writ of Mandamus to force her to issue licenses. The only thing it can do is hold her in contempt of court.
So, no George. No court can order an officer to issue marriage licenses, because no such law exists. Those refusing to issue marriage licenses have broken no law.
@Ditto #44:
I think that this is getting to the point of splitting hairs. A “legal ruling” is law, but it is not “a” law. A SCOTUS decision is law, but it is not “a” law.
And that’s the only thing that the court DID do.
So what’s your point?
I suppose that in your way of looking at this, “being in contempt of court” isn’t the same thing as “breaking the law,” and again, that’s splitting rhetorical hairs. Davis DID SOMETHING that placed her in contempt of court. I think what she did can be described as “she insulted the law.” (Not “she insulted A law.”) There’s a difference, but instead of quibbling about what that difference might or might not be, why don’t YOU go ahead and explain what she did (legally speaking, in terms that YOU can live with, without getting all snarky about it. Then we can stop beating around this silly bull$hit bush.
How can SCOTUS proclamations be the “law of the land” if they are not empowered to make law?!
Exactly. That’s not how it works. They can note a conflict in law. Then, it is up to the people’s representatives to correct the law through the legislature. Remember that whole “of the people, by the people” bit? It used to mean something.
There were actually no laws or statutes on the books in the United States banning same-sex marriage prior to 1973, when Maryland added a line to it’s Family Law Code reading “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this State.” Before that, the law didn’t even address the topic.
The Supreme Court can knock down any state law that it determines to be unconstitutional. In this case, it hasn’t knocked down any long-standing federal or state laws or statutes going back to earlier times, because there weren’t any.
@Greg:
But what the SCOTUS cannot do is replace one law with another. Only state/federal legislatures can do that, and at this point, Kentucky has not convened its legislature for that purpose.
Nor can the SCOTUS enforce its ruling. If hundreds of county clerks in the U.S. refuse to follow the dictate of the SCOTUS, SCOTUS cannot take action against them.
Clerks have no authority to decide what laws they will or won’t recognize. If they thought they did, legal anarchy would result.
This pretty much sums up the absurdity of Kim Davis’s thinking on that point.
Her attitude is an affront to not just to the Supreme Court, but to the entire hierarchy of county, state, and federal government. She has disqualified herself for the position she holds by refusing to do what the job requires. She should resign. If she doesn’t comply or resign, she’ll be back in jail.
@retire05 #48:
They don’t have to replace any law. Removing an unconstitutional prohibition IN EFFECT makes the prohibited act legal. You refuse to answer the following question because it proves this point:
What law makes eating hamburgers legal?
Answer: NONE!
If a state enacted a law prohibiting gays from eating of hamburgers, the Supreme Court would find it unconstitutional. That wouldn’t CREATE a law allowing gays to eat hamburgers, would it? NO!
That’s because everybody gets a free pass for the pursuit of happiness UNLESS there is a valid law against it.
We don’t NEED a law specifying every last legal thing people can think of to do.
Your insistence that a court’s decision to strike a prohibition CREATES A LAW OF PERMISSION is not just illogical, it is incorrect.
We CAN blow balloons. We CAN blow other things too, because there are no valid laws, state or federal, that prohibit those actions. Gays can marry each other because there are no valid laws that say that they can’t. That’s all that is needed. We don’t GET and we don’t NEED laws of permission. Why can’t you understand this VERY simple fact?