With all the talk lately about “religious freedom,” you might think that there would be some agreed-upon definition of what it is. But of course, you’d be wrong. American Civics is no longer taught, and few people have the slightest idea of what freedom of religion is. More and more, I am noticing that it is increasingly difficult for opposing parties to engage in dialogue, because they cannot agree on basic terms. Legally incoherent though it may be, Madonna’s brother’s recent remark highlights the problem:
“The county clerk in [Kentucky] deserves about as much support as you would give her if she were a Muslim [woman] who insisted on covering her face and refused not only gay marriages licenses, but divorce, accusations of rape and driving a car without your man’s approval,” he wrote.
(Well, I’d give both of them about as much support — none — but I guess I’m old fashioned.)
There are innumerable religions with innumerable beliefs, customs, rules, and prohibitions. In theory, the state is supposed to stay out of it completely, and remain neutral, neither supporting nor opposing religion in general or particular religions.
Whether marriage licensing is an appropriate matter for the state is of course debatable, just as it is debatable whether the state should license businesses such as bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. But once there is a licensing system in place, with bureaucrats employed to run it, it strikes me as inviting absolute chaos to allow the individual religious views of the bureaucrats to trump their given duties. There’s a lot of focus (and silly outrage imo) now being directed against a clerk now enjoying her 15 minutes of fame for refusing to issue same sex marriage licenses despite the fact that the law requires her to do that as part of her job. While I suspect she is determined to become some sort of martyr (and I think it was stupid to arrest her instead of simply firing her for non-feasance), I’ve still been scratching my head over how so many people have come to believe that religious freedom would give a government employee a right to violate a legal duty.
While I am unaware of any specific prohibition of same sex marriage in the Bible, I don’t see how that is relevant. Lots of things are prohibited in various sacred texts. Jesus spoke against divorce in no uncertain terms. Clearly, this would mean that Christians who are against divorce have every right to oppose divorce, to refuse to divorce, but would that mean that a court clerk has a “religious” right to refuse to allow couples to file court papers seeking divorces?
Or is it unreasonable of me to venture that if your religious views make it impossible for you to stamp court papers in divorce cases, maybe you shouldn’t work as a court clerk? Or that if you are against women being allowed to drive for religious reasons, perhaps you shouldn’t work behind the counter at the DMV?
If Muslims and Jews are forbidden to eat pork, would that give a Muslim or Jewish Health Department functionary the right to refuse to give a food or restaurant license to an applicant who planned to sell or serve pork in his establishment? Ditto, alcohol licensing. There is religious freedom to be against consumption of alcohol or pork, but by what stretch of the imagination does that extend to preventing others from consuming it? How is that so many people are imagining that having a particular government employee’s religious views dictate government policy is “religious freedom?”
Is “religious freedom” becoming into a right to have that belief enforced on others? If so, then my drinking booze and eating pork violates other people’s religious freedom.
I think the problem goes beyond religion, and stems from a stubborn belief that doing something other people don’t like is itself an imposition on others.
Comments
26 responses to “All must obey my “religious freedom”!”
I think you’re arguing two different points here. The first is whether a Christian has a leg to stand on when saying the Bible allows for same sex marriage. Second, if the Constitution, law and precedence allow for an individual holding public office to refuse to fill the obligations of their office because they object on religious grounds.
The first I think is very clear from a Biblical position. There are 1000’s of pages from scholars much more knowledgeable than I am on this point, and honestly, I don’t think is has anything to do with this argument. She could be a Rastafarian wanting to smoke weed during lunch at the Capitol for all I care. That gets to the second point..
Should the Government be allowed to compel it’s workers to violate their conscience to perform their duties? In this case, duties that changed after this individual too the position. This is not a volunteer in the military deciding he’s a conscientious objector the day before shipping out. She took the job with one description and now the job changed and she objects. You’re right, by the way, she should have been reprimanded, disciplined, then let go. Instead, arrest and Jail??? Really, I think the Government thought they could have it both ways and not have to deal with the suit that would follow a firing and hoped she’s freak out with the court got involved… now they look bad any way this goes. The Judge even stated that fines were not going to fix this, she would either refuse to pay them, or worse, have them paid by a legal fund and just keep refusing to do the job.
I don’t know what I’d do in her position. To me she had two choices. Stand up for her religious position and step down, knowing that they clashed with her beliefs, OR do what she did and refuse to do the portion of her job and clearly explain why and take the consequences of her stance.
It should be up to the individual as to how they follow their faith, and up others as to weather they want to keep that person employed. This can be a county clerk refusing to do the job or a baker refusing to sell cakes.
Yes. Absolutely. And if she doesn’t have the integrity to step down then she should be fired. If the local or state government won’t fire her then then federal government should put her in jail.
Similarly, so-called sanctuary city mayors should be jailed by federal judges when illegal aliens kill or maim citizens when it can be proved that said illegal alien should have been kept in custody after an encounter with local police, but wasn’t because of local policies defying federal law. San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee should be in federal jail right now, awaiting charges for accessory to murder. Ditto for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And Bill “I’ll kiss Danny Ortega’s ass” de Blasio.
Goose/gander, et al.
If she doesn’t want to comply the honorable thing for her to do is quit. Write an eloquent letter to the editor of the local newspaper explaining her moral position. Or just shut up and do her job. We all have to do unpleasant shit to survive, you whiner. Instead we get this month’s national panic du jour three ring surface clown and pony show of the week.
I’m effing sick of the whole thing.
And, since every commenter and his dog has an analogous case to argue all over the intertubes (so much simpler than real logic), how about a christian school teacher who refuses to teach evolution? Should be fired? Reasonable accommodation? (however you do that, creationists must stand outside, 25′ minimum from the entrance, like smokers?) “teach the controversy”? Laughed out of class is my preference.
And what about muslim polygamy? And child brides? What happens to the clerk who refuses to issue a marriage permit to Mohammud, Habiba, Ayisha, Zaynab and Zuleika?
What is marriage, anyway? If it’s a contract the state has a vested interest in regulating the forms and norms of it.
It it’s some sort of metaphysical state involving a man, woman, and god, than atheists are not, and can not be married. And a lot of other caveats, like which god?
If it’s the formalized expression of human pair bonding as developed over a broad swath of civilizations it’s not really much different from the contractual case above. The religious trappings serve to solemnize the occasion which can have far-ranging social, economic and legal ramifications. (go ahead, step on the wine glass, ride the elephant, fly to Niagara, go for it! You’re in this together for life, or at least until you get bored)
Most county clerks are elected to office. I believe this woman is serving an elected term.
Three things:
(1) UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh has a very informative analysis of religious freedom laws at the link below, covering the issue from all angles, state and federal. Highly recommended.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/04/when-does-your-religion-legally-excuse-you-from-doing-part-of-your-job/
(2) Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ (D) objection here is not issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples per se, even though she thinks SSM violates her god’s dictates. Her objection is that with her name on the license (as required by law, it’s PRINTED on the form) people will somehow construe that she does support SSM by virtue of her printed name on the form. That’s why she wouldn’t allow her underlings to issue licenses, her name is printed on the license even if her signature isn’t.
Her argument seems specious to me on its merits. The county clerk position oversees the office that performs perfunctory government administrative duties for the county unit. Candidates campaign on their competency to do the job efficiently and diligently. Public policy concerns usually don’t enter into the conversation as managerial competence is the main requirement to fulfill the duties of the office. So I don’t think the casual voter would assume that she’s gung ho for SSM merely because her name is (b)PRINTED(/b) on the license just like her name is printed on any other official form that is prepared and filed while she holds the office.
Using her own reasoning, I could argue Ms. Davis is pro-death because her name appears on death certificates. (Assuming the clerks office issues death certificates.)
(3) The BIG LIE that’s been perpetrated since the idea of SSM first arose some years ago is that a person’s religious beliefs on marriage, SSM or otherwise, were relevant to the issue. They aren’t.
Marriage licenses issued by the state confer rights, responsibilities and civil contractual obligations on the couples’ union and nothing more. From the state’s perspective, this is all purely a civil matter. The fact that many people see the marriage union as a religious sacrament is irrelevant to the state and, by extension, irrelevant to whether gay couples should be allowed the same civil marriage rights as heterosexual couples. One’s religious views on marriage or homosexuality are IRRELEVANT in this purely civil matter.
I take no pleasure in saying this, but once again it’s fundamentalist Christianity’s inability to respect civil versus religious boundaries that lies at the heart of the SSM controversy.
Here they are conflating their religious beliefs about marriage with the purely civil concerns of government-issued marriage licenses.
Most of us see the wisdom of keeping religion out of politics. We approach the political social contract as being about “We, the people,…” and take things from there. Unfortunately, there are many fundamentalist Christians who see the political social contract as “We, the people, and our God,…”. Not good IMO.
Why do these Christians do this? Because they place their religious beliefs and allegiance to dogma above the civil social contract that our secular governmental institutions represent.
They believe the verses from Romans 13: 1-7 apply to all governmental units throughout the USA.
There you have it. Ms. Davis and millions of Christians like her think our governmental institutions should act as God’s instrument. They labor under the idea that God ultimately owns everything on Earth, including all the federal and state governments in America. In their eyes, if we enact laws that go beyond their religious dogmas and doctrines, we are rebelling against God and the government is now illegitimate.
And this type of Christian thinks their religious freedom is being violated when the law wanders outside of God’s boundaries. Pass a law that violates my religious beliefs and you’re impinging on my religious freedom. They turn religious freedom as it’s been understood for decades on it’s head with their recent re-definition of religious freedom.
This is how the social conservatives in the Republican Party justify their comingling of religion and politics, because everything all belongs to God in the final analysis. Like The Blues Brothers, they are on a mission from God. The only thing unusual in the Davis case is that she is a Democrat and not a Republican.
Over the last few decades as I went from being a socially conservative Southern Baptist to a libertarian atheist, the more I find myself agreeing with the late Christopher Hitchens take on religion: Religion spoils everything.
you have a right to be a christian fundamental fascist homophobe. you do not have a right to be a clerk. oliver wendell holmes.
I grew up in Maryland, a slave state, and I am old enough to remember when it was a felony crime in Maryland for people of different races to marry. When the Supreme Court ruled that such laws were unconstitutional, county clerks across the South refused to issue marriage licenses to mixed race couples on religious grounds. They cited the Bible, which seems to disapprove of such unions. ‘Like unto like and kind unto kind.’ Those clerks were given the same choice this woman in Kansas is facing – if you can’t do your job in accordance with the law and decisions of the Supreme Court, resign or face prosecution – and that is how it should be.
“Like unto like and kind unto kind.”
Sounds suspiciously like an endorsement of gay marriage to me!
“Like unto like and kind unto kind.”
Sounds suspiciously like an endorsement of gay marriage to me!
Eric – I very much doubt that Mike Huckabee would agree with your interpretation of Scripture on this point.
I read elsewhere that she’s a recent convert. All of a sudden she’s just too too Christian to issue a same sex marriage license. Well, boo hoo hoo, sweetie, go render unto Caesar like a good little civil servant or shut the eff up, you stupid, whining cow.
Randy, thank you.
Mike Huckaboob is sticking his dick in it again.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/09/08/breaking-federal-judge-orders-kim-davis-released-from-jail/
Along with Cruz. Bad move, guys. Remember when Huckleberry got congress involved with that brain dead woman? How did that work out? I hate everything Huckster stands for, and on top of that, he has no sense of perspective.
MMM,
Regarding Huckabee, P.J. O’Rourke gives it to him good and hard here.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/01/the-unbearable-nuttiness-of-mike-huckabee.html
Randy, thank you for this. All she wanted was to get her name off of marriage certificates, and for that she got thrown in jail.
Retarded. But then again, The gay community feels the need to be sore winners.
to get the ignorant southern white trash voters to vote republican to keep taxes low on the rich huckaboob and the tea baggers were welcomed into republican party. it was nixon’s southern strategy. bed time for bonzo reagan gave his first speech in 1980 after he got the g.o.p. nomination in philadelphia mississippi where the three civil rights workers were murdered welcoming the ku klux klan into the republican party!
To pick out one fragment of the above nonsense; Reagan had been honing and perfecting The Speech since Barry Goldwater in 1964.
“southern white trash” Very inclusive. The exact same folks used to vote demoncrat, what did ya’ll call us back then?
to get the ignorant northern black trash voters to vote democrat to keep taxes negative on the lazy obarmy and the black panthers were welcomed into dimocrat party. it was mrs. obarmy’s northern strategy red time for alinsky gave her first speech in 2012 after her husband got the dimmycrat nomination in charlotte north carolina where the two police officers were murdered welcoming the black panthers into the dimicrat party!
actually we need the black panthers in the democrat party to kick the butts of corporate third way democrats for supporting the tpp.
I think that it is important to consider the fact that she was elected to this position. She isn’t a file clerk employed by the county.
CapitalistRoader mocks CapAss? This is getting weird.
Unfortunately, Kim Davis won’t be satisfied with having her name removed from the marriage licenses. Volokh’s little compromise isn’t enough. She wants the entire marriage license thing removed from county clerk’s responsibility if she has to issue SS licenses. No way will this woman issue the licenses, with or without her name on them.
Eric wrote:
I think the problem goes beyond religion, and stems from a stubborn belief that doing something other people don’t like is itself an imposition on others.
Yup! Here’s chapter and verse from Conservative Hero Robert Bork defending exactly that policy.
From: The Tempting of America, by Robert Bork, page 123.
The unqualified and even fanatic support for Bork by conservatives exposes their collectivist premises. Just look at Bork’s argument for ‘moral gratification’ over ‘sexual gratification’ in his Indiana Law Journal submission.
@ c andrew
I think the nation dodged a judicial bullet when Robert Bork didn’t make it onto the USSC. A few years ago it would have been impossible for me to say this but not today. Thank you Sen. Ted Kennedy. LOL
@ Frank
Glad you liked it. I think it pretty well captures the sad state of affairs concerning religious intrusion into politics.
Religion in politics muddies the water and poisons the well. How’s that for metaphor mixing? LOL
Besides his repulsive politics the thing that strikes me about Bork is how staggeringly ugly he is. Real ugliness comes from within, and what’s within Bork must be some seriously ugly shit.
And he’s a creationist.
During the Hobby Lobby controversy, I criticized the Left for treating an arts-supply firm as though it were a government agency. In the current controversy, the Left is treating a government agency as thought it were a government agency.
she cannot be fired- she’s an elected official. i assume that means she’d have to be recalled or impeached in some form which is at the discretion of those who elected her.