Democrat County Clerk Kim Davis is Wrong: Follow the rule of law or resign.

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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.

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@Greg:

Clerks have no authority to decide what laws they will or won’t recognize. If they thought they did, legal anarchy would result.

Nor do city council members or mayors. So why isn’t the mayor of San Francisco, and the mayor of every sanctuary city in the United States, not in jail?

@George Wells:

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?

Why don’t you understand that marriage laws are NOT the purview of the federal government. It is a 10th Amendment issue but because you felt it was your ox being gored, you support the SCOTUS ruling that is just as wrong as was Dred Scott.

There has never been any law preventing a gay person from marrying. Never.

As was pointed out in post #47:

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 prohibition is a new legal invention, not a long-standing law or statute. The Supreme Court has struck down each new iteration of the prohibition as fundamentally unconstitutional. So, no legal prohibition exists. Unless there’s some other legal restriction, same-sex couples cannot be denied the right to marriage that any other couple have. They have a right to equal treatment under the law. They have that right by default.

They’ll also have the same obligations, responsibilities, and legal complications that go along with anyone else’s marriage. Lots of luck with that.

@Skookum:

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

Imagine if they had based a decision on Shariah law.

@George Wells:

A SCOTUS decision is law, but it is not “a” law.

No It ‘s not splitting hairs at all. A SCOTUS decision is an opinion on law. It is not “a law”. Controversial SCOTUS decisions have been changed and even reversed by later Supreme Courts or by the creation of actual laws.

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.

“Contempt of court” is punishable because it shows disrespect for the judicial system, but it is not an illegal act. It is simply showing disdain for the court. There are no laws broken by someone showing contempt for a court. They could only hold the clerk in contempt of court for ignoring a court order, they could not hold her for breaking the law because she did not violate any laws. If you can find and quote precisely what law she broke do so. otherwise. your argument that ‘she broke the law’ is not a valid one.

@Greg:

Clerks have no authority to decide what laws they will or won’t recognize.

Actually, Greg they can. She is the elected ruling authority over her department. She has learned from and is following in the example shown by President Obama.

@retire05:

Nor do city council members or mayors…

No retire05, They can refuse to enforce local laws, as they have the same Prosecutorial discretion that Obama has. They are not however allowed to ignore Federal law.

@Ditto:

The mayors, and city council members, are not allowed to violate federal law. But you see, most of those mayors and council members of sanctuary cities are Democrats. Somehow, our resident radical leftwingers seem to think that Kim Davis should be thrown into jail for ignoring an illegal ruling by a SCOTUS, that uses penumbras and foreign law to determine what is, and what is not, Constitutional, but do seem to think that the Democrats who ignore (federal) immigration laws should join her.

The case of Kim Davis has served to show the hypocrisy of the left as they are the ones who have for decades supported refusing to enforce federal law.

Kim Davis swore to uphold the law. She was following her oath. The opinion of the court was not a law. The opinion of the court required that the state change the law that the court said was illegal. Kim had no choice to follow the law, as written, until the law was rescinded or changed by the state. The court was wrong in ordering her to violate the state law or be held in contempt.
Kim Davis was right.
The Judge was wrong.

@Ditto #54:

“A SCOTUS decision is law, but it is not “a” law.”
“No It ‘s not splitting hairs at all. A SCOTUS decision is an opinion on law. It is not “a law”. Controversial SCOTUS decisions have been changed and even reversed by later Supreme Courts or by the creation of actual laws.”

You are trying awfully hard to make a difference here that doesn’t exist. Both statements say essentially the same thing.

“If you can find and quote precisely what law she broke do so. otherwise. your argument that ‘she broke the law’ is not a valid one.”

Who made the argument that Davis “broke the law”?
I didn’t.

Your statements concerning contempt of court are also correct.
I can’t find what you are arguing over.
The only thing that appears amiss is your suggestion that Davis was correctly following Obama’s example, which she was not.
If Obama broke the law, he should be punished. If he is NOT punished, it does not logically follow that other criminal acts must also go unpunished. One crime is not legally linked to another.

#57:

“The opinion of the court required that the state change the law that the court said was illegal. Kim had no choice to follow the law, as written, until the law was rescinded or changed by the state.”

The opinion of the court required no such CHANGE in Kentucky law. The court simply voided an unconstitutional law. It did not create a new law, and no new law was needed. Read my #50 post and tell me what law is needed to make eating hamburgers legal? None. Right. Once the KY law forbidding gay marriage was voided, the right didn’t need a law of permission. There is no such THING as a “law of permission.” THEY DON’T EXIST!
THEY ARE NOT NEEDED!
WHY IS EVERYBODY MISSING THIS POINT?
Of course Davis didn’t break a law.
The judge didn’t say otherwise, and neither did I.

#56:

“The case of Kim Davis has served to show the hypocrisy of the left as they are the ones who have for decades supported refusing to enforce federal law.”

Sweet-cheeks! Politics is chock-a-block full of hypocrisy!
What’s your point?
Don’t expect the liberal left to fight your battles.
If you think that the SCOTUS ruling was illegal, fix it if you can figure out how to.
If you think that current immigration policy is being abused, do something about it if you can.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. One travesty of the law doesn’t forgive another.
If you can’t get the abuses of power (that are making YOU angry) corrected, that’s YOUR problem.

@George Wells:

If Obama broke the law, he should be punished.

Since you are so into finely splitting even the thinnest of hairs, in the case of Obama, do you consider not enforcing laws, not enacting laws, ignoring laws or unilaterally changing already passed laws “breaking” the law?

@Bill #61:

“Since you are so into finely splitting even the thinnest of hairs, in the case of Obama, do you consider not enforcing laws, not enacting laws, ignoring laws or unilaterally changing already passed laws “breaking” the law?”

Yes, I do.
While there are instances of legitimately evoked “executive privilege” that somewhat temper some laws which would otherwise trip up an “ordinary” citizen, presidents are not above the law. Executive privilege is grossly overused, and Obama hasn’t been an angel in this regard.

But we don’t require citizens to self-incriminate. Neither do we require criminals to prosecute themselves. That is left up to people who believe that prosecution in such cases is necessary in the first place, and THEN, they have to have that troublesome “standing” thing.

I consider smoking pot to be a criminal act (in most states, at the moment) but I have no standing (no business) prosecuting pot smokers, and I have no INTEREST in prosecuting them either.

Same applies in Obama’s case. I don’t have a dog in that race, so-to-speak. Aside from the fact that he’s a lame-duck at this point, Obama isn’t my fight, he’s YOURS!

@George Wells:

Same applies in Obama’s case. I don’t have a dog in that race, so-to-speak. Aside from the fact that he’s a lame-duck at this point, Obama isn’t my fight, he’s YOURS!

Typical of the liberal; create the mess, then walk off and leave it for others to deal with. Sorry, but no, YOU got him elected (for one selfish want) and now we ALL have to suffer the consequences. In fact, Ms. Davis was probably swept into office on the coattails of Obama’s election, benefiting from straight party voting (she’s a Democrat, you know). Heck, if it weren’t for the practice made routine in this administration of simply ignoring the laws one does not like or think just, perhaps she would have never dared to challenge the ruling.

@Bill #63:

“Sorry, but no, YOU got him elected (for one selfish want) and now we ALL have to suffer the consequences.”

I am truly sorry to disappoint you, Bill, but I haven’t “suffered’ under Obama’s presidency. I was first covered by Obama-Care’s “Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan” (having been dropped from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in year 2000 when I developed diabetes), married Paul, became eligible for coverage under HIS government healthcare (FEHP) when DOMA part 2 was voided, and FINALLY had our estate protected by the IRS marital exclusion when Virginia was made to accept our marriage. All this happened under Obama’s presidency. For us, it meant a potential savings of over one million, total, and while every step didn’t produce the same savings, each produced significant savings and each represented a tremendous civil rights victory. And Obama still has another year!

I’m not sure how these events have specifically caused YOU to suffer, although I understood from the start that extending health-care to millions of people who couldn’t afford to pay for it themselves was going to cost the rest of us something. You might not like the step that the “Affordable Care Act” took toward socialized medicine, but the GOP wasn’t about to give any real health-care help to the indigent, other than making for-profit hospitals foot the bill for a lot of unnecessary emergency-room visits, and I’m not comfortable with the government making mothers give birth to unwanted children and then letting them die from lack of decent health services.

Yes, the rest of us have to pay more, be it through increased taxes or increased medical insurance premiums, but I see that as more than a little poetic justice of the ironic sort. I got what I wanted, and you got what I think you deserved. No, we are not ALL suffering.

Now I’ll give you a bit of genuine credit, Bill.
You didn’t make the stupid mistake Ditto, Redteam and Retire05 made when they argued that when the SCOTUS voided one law, it created another one. “Legislating from the bench” is a hot-button partisan war-cry that in reality has no legal basis at all. Their misunderstanding of the law and their sloppy use of the language boxed them into a corner from which they cannot escape.

@George Wells: The nation is suffering. Good for you, getting your little slice of everyone’s labors, but the economy has suffered, the military has suffered, national security has suffered, national stature has suffered and, as a result, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have suffered.

I am very close to retirement, but the sorry economy has my retirement suffering. Yet, my primary concern is the condition this country will be in for my children and grandchildren… and the prospect is not bright. Thanks to Obama. Thanks to the people who, out of selfish want, put him in office.

But, you got married. Yippee. The world rejoices.

@George Wells: 59 you’re only partially right George. No matter how many different ways you say it, it still gets down to The clerk of court has to follow ‘the law’, which in this case is a state law. The federal court did not ‘void’ that law, it only said it was illegal and could not be enforced and for Kim to follow the law, they had to change that one or void it. It couldn’t be left as was. But, Kim Davis was still bound by law to enforce that state law, that was required of a person holding the office of Clerk of Court in the state of Kentucky, because until the State either changed it or voided it, it was still the law. It was up to the state to change or void, not up to the Clerk of Court. The federal judge acted illegally because Kim Davis was not in contempt of court, she was doing her job and the judge didn’t have authority to judge ‘her’ only to judge if that law was illegal or not. I suspect this is all going to be flushed out as time goes by. Judge’s need to get away from being policemen and doing their job, which is to judge.

@Bill:

But, you got married. Yippee.

What””””? George found him a woman and got ‘married’. ?

@George Wells:

It did not create a new law, and no new law was needed.

If there is a state law in Kentucky that spells out the duties of a clerk of court and the clerk of court swears to uphold that law, then a ‘law is necessary’. That law did exist in Kentucky and that law still exists in Kentucky. Now that a federal judge has ruled that some part of that law is unconstitutional, then either the law has to be rescinded or changed because the Clerk of Court is still bound by oath to uphold that law.
When some people swear an oath to uphold and defend a law, they take it seriously. Some people, such as this judge and Barack Obama don’t seem to give a damn about their oath and do just whatever they feel like at the moment.

The proper thing to have happened was for the judge to stay all activities until the state either changed the law or rescinded it and give them a time frame to do so. But the judge acted illegally and took a political move instead of a legal move.

@George Wells: 64

government making mothers give birth to unwanted children and then letting them die from lack of decent health services.

Heck yea, just stick a vacuum in there and suck their brains out and sell their livers for a Lamborghini Much simpler than having them be born and have to raise them and all that confusion.

@George Wells:

You didn’t make the stupid mistake Ditto, Redteam and Retire05 made when they argued that when the SCOTUS voided one law, it created another one.

unlike that stupid statement that you just made. You can not show me any place where I have said that SCOTUS created a law. Legislating from the bench is when the court voids a law and requires you to do something specific, which is a violation of another law. Such as the case in Kentucky. The judge had a right to say the law was unconstitutional but he didn’t have the right to say what the clerk ‘had to do’, that is still up to the state of Kentucky.

@ Redteam #70:

“Legislating from the bench is when the court voids a law and requires you to do something specific, which is a violation of another law.”

The Hell it is. “Legislating” is when a legislature writes a law, a majority of the LEGISLATORS vote to pass it, and the executive signs it INTO law as opposed to vetoing it. That’s what legislating is, and no part of it can be done from a judge’s bench. What the legislature does and what a judge does aren’t the same things.

In essence, the judge told Davis “you WILL treat everyone equally,” and she said “No I won’t!” That’s why the judge found her in contempt of court. Has nothing at all to do with “legislating from the bench.”

If you’ve figured out that SOMETHING I said was correct (your #66: “59 you’re only partially right George.”) then why don’t you point out exactly what that was and then try to explain why it has nothing to do with this case.

@Bill #65:

“the economy has suffered”

Only since China (one of our biggest trading partners, thanks to our stupid and greedy decision to lower trade barriers and ship our manufacturing capacity abroad) let its state-controlled economic bubble burst and then had to devalue its currency, crashing THEIR stock market and screwing our balance of payments with them all to Hell. Up to two weeks ago, we were on an economic high. Your 401K dropped last week because of what happened in China, not because I voted for Obama…

“the military has suffered”

Because the bipartisan-supported sequestration has strangled it..

“national stature has suffered”

And we’ve lost face because we’ve let our underfunded educational system collapse, and our students can’t compete with second-tier nation’s kids when it comes the three R’s. We’ve lost face because our national morality hasn’t kept pace with the calender, and our glorious GOP now more closely approximates Russia, Iran, North Korea and Uganda than the rest of the modern world when it comes to issues like gay rights, the death penalty, our treatment of prisoners, and a bunch of other metrics we get evaluated on. We’ve lost face because we presume to tell OTHER countries how to manage “human rights” before we’ve figured out how to manage our own. Snowden’s revelations of our collective secret mischief helped too. Was that MY fault?…

“hundreds of thousands of people around the world have suffered.”

Time to borrow something from Rand Paul. I’m not my brother’s keeper. I’m not the World’s police. Until we stop millions of OUR OWN CITIZENS – ALL of them – from suffering, I’m just not going to let my jock get tied in a knot over how many foreigners are busy abusing or killing each other. “Suffering” is a necessary condition of life, the regrettable consequence of survival of the fittest. Like those documenting life and death on the Serengeti, watch and learn, but don’t interfere.

.

@George Wells:

“you WILL treat everyone equally,” a

And that was ‘legislating’. There was no law in place that required she treat everyone equally, so if she had to, it would be in compliance with the new law he had just created. She certainly wasn’t being treated ‘equally’, why wasn’t the judge required to treat everyone ‘equally’?

and no part of it can be done from a judge’s bench.

You meant to say, that ‘legally’ no part of it can be done from a judge’s bench.

In essence, the judge told Davis “you WILL treat everyone equally,” and she said “No I won’t!” That’s why the judge found her in contempt of court. Has nothing at all to do with “legislating from the bench.”

Where did the judge get the ‘authority’ to compel her to ‘treat everyone equally’? He created that authority on the spur of the moment sitting there on the bench. The clerk of court is not under a legal obligation to ‘treat everyone equally’. She is only required to treat everyone as the are entitled by the law that she had sworn to uphold. Now I’ve not read the law that specifies the duties of the clerk of court and I suspect that judge had also not read that particular law either. He just had it in mind that he was going to make her violate her oath of office, come hell or high water.

from 59:

The opinion of the court required no such CHANGE in Kentucky law. The court simply voided an unconstitutional law. It did not create a new law, and no new law was needed.

You are correct that the opinion of the court required no such Change in Kentucky law. However without any change in the law the clerk could not comply with the opinion of the court. The clerk is ‘required’ to comply with the laws of the state of Kentucky. If Kentucky has a law that the clerk has to act in a specific way then she would not be in compliance with Kentucky law unless the law were voided or changed.

Where the judge was wrong is that he treated the case as an illegal action by the clerk of court. The illegal action going on in the state of Kentucky was in the clerks in the other county’s that were issuing marriage licenses to homosexuals. As long as the law is that a clerk can’t issue a marriage license to a homosexual, then no clerk can legally do so. Kim Davis complied with the law. If the judge decides that law is in conflict with the constitution, then the obligation is that the state has to no longer require the clerk to honor that part of the law. That requires a voiding or change in the law. It likely would not change other aspects of the law.
Suppose someone comes in tomorrow and wants a marriage license to marry a horse? Is the clerk required to issue that license. Isn’t the person requesting one entitled to do whatever the hell he wants to do? Shouldn’t the judge lock the clerk up if she refuses to issue one?

#73:

“There was no law in place that required she treat everyone equally”

Sure there was, and is. It is the provision of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution that requires – that GUARANTEES – that all citizens are and will be treated equally.

Redteam: The rest of your #73 – every last word of it – is a repeat. You are arguing points that have already been decided at the highest level. You have nowhere else to take this argument. You have won it in your mind but lost it in the courts and in the mind of the public. You stubbornly insist that gays cannot marry each other while a million of them do. They get all the state and federal benefits they can think of, they get to marry each other in a Christian Church if they want to… they get EVERYTHING they want. The only thing they DON’T get is for YOU to agree with them on what every last word in the dictionary means. WHO CARES!
Belief what you want. What YOU belief is meaningless to everyone except for the few who believe exactly what YOU believe, and there are precious few of them. Good luck!

@George Wells: Sorry George, I just went over and re-read the entire 14th amendment and there is neither a requirement nor a guarantee that everyone be treated ‘equally’. you have to have broad interpretations to come anywhere near what you’re saying is required.

I also went over and looked at the requirements for the Clerk of Court in Kentucky and according to it, the clerk is required to comply with the laws of the state of Kentucky. It does not give them leeway to decide whether they want to comply or not. It ‘requires’ they comply.

@Redteam:

The proper thing to have happened was for the judge to stay all activities until the state either changed the law or rescinded it and give them a time frame to do so.

Oddly enough, that is exactly what she was doing. She wasn’t just refusing to give out marriage licenses to gays, she wasn’t processing ANY marriage licenses.

Georgie You didn’t make the stupid mistake Ditto, Redteam and Retire05 made when they argued that when the SCOTUS voided one law, it created another one.:

George is deluded. He was saying that the SCOTUS decision is law.

George Wells: The SCOTUS decision isn’t legislation, but it IS law.

It is we who keep pointing out to George that the SCOTUS can not create law. What the Constitution requires is for them to rule on the constitutionality of laws. (ie. whether a law violates the Constitution or is in good standing with it.) Determining the definition of Marriage is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution as part of the powers given over to the Federal government. The institution of marriage is not in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, But the 10th Amendment is which states clearly:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Neither the States, nor the People have delegated to Congress, the President or the Supreme Court the power to delegate and change the meaning of marriage. The recent SCOTUS decision tyrannically oversteps the power of the states, which have reserved the right to define marriage. It is therefore an unconstitutional decision made by the very branch of government which is supposed to keep to the balance of powers. Instead, five arrogant and power-heady Supreme Court Justices decided to perform an unconstitutional act of Judicial activism that unilaterally violates both their own Constitutionally limited powers, and the Tenth Amendment, in order to issue an illegal judicial decree that is as tyrannical as Obama’s own misuses of power. As the Judicial branch is prohibited from creating laws or rewriting laws (which is a legislative not judicial power,) , this decision can not legally redefine marriage in violation of the Tenth Amendment or State laws.

@George Wells:

It is the provision of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution that requires – that GUARANTEES – that all citizens are and will be treated equally.

There is no such provision. Stop lying Georgie.

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

@Ditto #77:

“It is the provision of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution that requires – that GUARANTEES – that all citizens are and will be treated equally.”
“There is no such provision.”

Sure there is. Look at the last sentence of section 1 of the damned amendment:

“nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

What the F do you THINK that means?

No, it DOESN’T mean that everyone gets the same number of jellybeans. It means that everyone gets treated equally by the law and the people administering it. Including Kim Davis.

@Redteam:

Sorry George, I just went over and re-read the entire 14th amendment and there is neither a requirement nor a guarantee that everyone be treated ‘equally’.

You missed it? You didn’t see it, clearly, in tiny, fine print, invisibly between lines 4 & 5 stating, “of course any interest groups that whines, crys, shouts, screams, threatens violence and intimidates can redefine whatever liberties, rights and access as they please and the rest of the gutless legislative world will politically correctly bow to their whims”? Surprising you didn’t see it; George certainly did. And, speaking of George…

@George Wells:

Only since China (one of our biggest trading partners, thanks to our stupid and greedy decision to lower trade barriers and ship our manufacturing capacity abroad)

Blame the unions for pricing themselves out of the market and your liberal legislators for taxing businesses off shore.

Because the bipartisan-supported sequestration has strangled it..

Pushed by your President.

And we’ve lost face because we’ve let our underfunded educational system collapse,

The educational system is in no way underfunded; it is overrepresented by far left “teachers” (indoctrinators) and learning takes a back seat to liberal ideology. Another gift to the nation from people like yourself that vote for one particular selfish desire rather than for the good of the nation.

Time to borrow something from Rand Paul. I’m not my brother’s keeper. I’m not the World’s police.

Not policing the world is one thing; having someone like Obama go around and f**k things up, as he did in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, etc. is quite another. Again, thanks, George and all your fellow liberals.

It means that everyone gets treated equally by the law and the people administering it. Including Kim Davis.

But they AREN’T, are they, George? Davis ISN’T treated equally, is she? And you leftists don’t really CARE if they are, do you George? For, if you actually cared, you would have been as outspoken about the gay judge in Dallas that will not perform weddings until same-sex “marriage” is legal… since 2012. Or, you would have insisted for jail time for sanctuary city leaders that disregard immigration laws. Good luck getting anyone to believe you want fairness or justice; all you want is your WANTS.

Of course, the reason the lesbian Dallas judge was not jailed is because anyone denied their “rights” by her simply found another judge instead of, say, coming from Ohio with a camera crew to whine and cry and bellyache until someone took notice of their non-crisis.

@Bill #79:

I am detecting the flavor of sour grapes in your comments. You are conveying the taste of bitter defeat quite convincingly. As I am sure you anticipate, you don’t have my sympathy. You lost any chance of that when you chose to blame ME for your failures. You also lost any chance of convincing me of anything when you chose not to debate issues logically.

I don’t care how you feel. I DO think that it is important to be right. Since you never respond to my logical arguments, I can conclude that you are incapable of refuting them, and that convinces me that I am right and that you are wrong.

You got one thing right. All I want is what I want. That was pretty accurate. I’ve LEARNED that it is a waste of my time to attempt to fight everyone else’s battles, so I expend my assets only on my highest priorities. I think that’s good business. And I’m NOT in the business of endowing YOUR grandchildren’s future. That’s YOUR job. Your spawn are not my responsibility. If YOU can’t afford to take care of them, maybe you should not have had children in the first place.

@George Wells: Yeah, well the price for what you “want” hurt the nation and, as that happens, the world. Of course, we will be long gone, but you seem to show little concern for any of your gay brethren to follow you if the United States should continue on its progressive and weakening path and one day does NOT have the protections of the Constitution. We see how gays fare under other regimes; you apparently care little for the maintenance of those protections here when that maintenance gets in the way of seeing just how much can be squeezed from the current form of government.

But forget that… go have a cupcake. It’s your “right”.

@Bill #81:

What you THINK is good for the country and what I THINK is good for the country are two distinctly different things. Since you don’t bother to make a logical argument in support of your premise, preferring instead to simply blame every imperfection on the opposing administration and its supporters, there really isn’t anything to discuss. It is sufficient to say that I disagree with you. You deserve nothing more.

I took care of myself, no thanks to you. You take care of yours without my help. Future generations can do what they wish with what they inherit, as did OUR generation. We are born with no guarantees, no warranties. “God helps those who help themselves,” and I’m not so sure He’s on the job.

Pete thinks homosexuality is a curable disease, so maybe future generations won’t have that problem to deal with, and my concern for the welfare of future gays would be misplaced. But don’t hold your breath. I’m not.

@George Wells:

nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

equal protection of ‘the’ laws.? Okay tell us which laws, passed by the US congress has anything to do with ‘marriage’? Equal protection means that ‘a law passed has to apply equally to anyone.’. If no law is passed, which there hasn’t been, then it can’t be applied equally can it? The federal government can not require that all states must pass a law just because one state does. If it could then I would have a right to the oil money being distributed to the residents of Alaska, after all, the US does own the oil, not the state of Alaska. The State of Texas has 80 mph speed limits on their federal highways, that does not mean I can drive 80 legally in Louisiana, nor can I require the Federal government to require La to allow me to drive as fast as they can in Texas.

Edit: that might be a good law to challenge. I think I will see if I can get a Federal judge to rule that I can legally drive 80mph in La as long as it’s legal in Texas.

@George Wells:

Oh, so you can read the Constitution when it is shoved in your face. That’s good, now we’re getting somewhere.

Now perhaps you can pull it up and read the part about what powers are allowed the three separate branches of government. Specifically Article 3 Section 2, where you will find that the Court was only given the supreme judicial power of the United States and not the supreme legislative or enforcement powers. Judicial power is only allowed to strike down a law or make rulings based on law. Judicial power should never be allowed to violate the separation of powers and change law.

There is no Federal law declaring that the institution of Marriage is to be redefined from it’s original meaning “a union between one man and one woman,” to now mean any other kind of union you damn well please (ie. between two men, between two women, between any number of men and/or women, between any adult and child, between a man and his sheep, between a woman and her donkey, etc…)

As there has been no Federal law changing the definition, the Clerk was not required to enforce a non-existent law over a state law she already had on the books.

Let me be clear George, that I fully supported the creation of civil unions for homosexuals when it was first asked for, but when the LGBT decided to target traditional marriage for political redefinition, and more recently started the targeted legal system persecution of Christians (and others) who opposed that change… Well, that changed the argument from equal treatment under the law, into a war between systems of belief with a minority demanding that the majority be forced to change it’s belief system to that of the minority. “Equal treatment under the law” also means that the personal belief systems of one group should not be allowed through judicial activism to force it’s own beliefs on that of others against their will. That is tyranny, and misuse of the Judicial system to “change the law” is unconstitutional.

@Ditto: George is not gonna buy your argument since it doesn’t serve his purpose. As you suggested, legal unions were created to give everyone the same ‘domestic union’ rules and laws. But that didn’t provide that it entitled two girls to be ‘married’ or two boys could be ‘married’. The connotation ‘marriage’ was a term they wanted us to be required to be used so that they didn’t feel as if they were living in sin. I will never knowingly (I might accidentally) refer to two guys living together as ‘married’ or the same for two girls. Kinda like two kids ‘playing grownup’. I think the real solution is that the states get out of the marriage business entirely and let persons do whatever they want to. If a church wants to marry a couple, then fine, but it wouldn’t be registered with the state. If some people, two or more want to create a legal union, then they should just file ‘legal union’ papers.

@George Wells:

I am detecting the flavor of sour grapes in your comments.

No more than your constant harping about being gay. Odd that Madonna’s openly gay brother would call your ilk sore “winners.”

You are conveying the taste of bitter defeat quite convincingly.

Only in your delusional mind.

As I am sure you anticipate, you don’t have my sympathy.

And, on the other side of the coin, we who disagree with you should have no sympathy for you, or the problems associated with your life style. Remember, those are your rules.

But then, it seems you do have some sympathy for some when you said this:

” I understood from the start that extending health-care to millions of people who couldn’t afford to pay for it themselves was going to cost the rest of us something.”

So there was sympathy on your part for those who did not have health insurance and were willing to pay for it. Your sympathy seems to be selective. Odd.

You lost any chance of that when you chose to blame ME for your failures. You also lost any chance of convincing me of anything when you chose not to debate issues logically.

I don’t think you should be pointing fingers at others for the lack of being able to debate issues logically. Logic has not seemed to be your forte.

I don’t care how you feel.

And after all your blathering, you have failed to convince anyone here to care how you feel.

I DO think that it is important to be right.

Again, nothing more than being a sore winner.

Since you never respond to my logical arguments, I can conclude that you are incapable of refuting them, and that convinces me that I am right and that you are wrong.

Try presenting a logical argument and perhaps someone will respond.

You got one thing right. All I want is what I want. And I’m NOT in the business of endowing YOUR grandchildren’s future. That’s YOUR job. Your spawn are not my responsibility. If YOU can’t afford to take care of them, maybe you should not have had children in the first place.

Well then, by your standards, the future of all the thousands of men, especially gays, who have contracted HIV/AIDS and have no health insurance or the money to cover their drugs should not be OUR responsibility. So we can assume that your standard would be to just let them die, right?

I took care of myself, no thanks to you.

That is erroneous. Actually, it is the taxpayer that is currently taking care of you by providing you with government sponsored health insurance. Why should we be required to pay taxes for that purpose?

Pete thinks homosexuality is a curable disease

Ah, now you’re attributing to Pete something he didn’t say. Seems you have not been working on that nasty habit.

BTW, George, the United States has never been a “secular” nation. Our Constitution, itself, is steeped in the traditions of Cicero, Blackstone and the New Testament. But as you have proven many times, you are historically illiterate when it comes to certain things (like the Constitution and the history of the homosexual movement started by a German Marxist).

You have burned up much bandwidth trying to convince the rest of us we are wrong, and you are right. You continue to fail. And a broken, or damaged rib, is no excuse since you have been doing that since you first landed here.

You think the battle is over. I would remind you that is the same opinion those who supported the slaughter of babies (which you also support) thought at the time of the decision of Roe.

#Retire05 #86:

“the United States has never been a “secular” nation.”

Then what is it? A theocracy? (A state having immediate divine guidance.)

We’ve made room for adherents to every possible religion in our culture and its government, and we’ve bent over backwards to separate state from religion.
How is it that we aren’t a secular nation?

Our founding fathers had an assortment of different opinions on religion’s proper place in the scheme of things, but the end result of their efforts to put together a workable form of government included provisions for protecting religious freedom, not for establishing a Christian caliphate in America.