"I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscience objection... but, yes, I can say the conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.... Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right... Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.’ It is a human right.”
When asked specifically if he was including government workers in his response, Pope Francis responded: "It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right."
September 28, 2015
Pope Francis supports the right of government officials like Kim Davis to refuse, for religious reasons, to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Responding to a question from an ABC reporter, he said:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
107 comments:
I'm with Kim Davis in spirit, but her rights are not being infringed. She can resign her position and never have to worry about compromising her principles. As a government official she is required to obey the law, distasteful as it is, or surrender her authority. Once out of office she would be free to fight the good fight, and God bless her.
Repeating that it's a human right multiple times doesn't make the Pope's legal analysis any more sophisticated. He should stick to the things he knows best: the influence of the devil on our daily lives, and the beneficial results of exorcisms.
Pope Francis's statement lacked the detail necessary for it to have application to Davis. I doubt he was even aware of her case. In the case of Davis, it's one thing for Davis to be excused from personally issuing certain marriage licenses. It's quite another thing to excuse her when she is blocking everyone in her office from issuing licenses. She was released from jail and allowed to return to her job once the judge concluded that she wasn't interfering with the work of her office. She risks being returned to jail if it's determined that she went back to trying to sabotage the work of her office in defiance of the court order that the law of the land be enforced.
There goes the Strange New Respect.
This pope is a dope.
Somehow I don't think Ruth will be pointing out how we should all fall in line behind the Pope on this one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-popes-implicit-rebuke-of-the-gop/2015/09/25/778fd644-63ac-11e5-9757-e49273f05f65_story.html
I am only mildly sympathetic with this woman. I am more concerned about the bakery and flower shop cases. She is doing what the gays are doing to the bakeries. It's theater but the theater is ruining some innocent lives. She chose this and seems to be willing to accept the consequences. A guy named King had similar motives. How did he turn out ?
Two thousand years of refined doctrine meets au courant political fashion.
Let's see if liberals embrace the Pope's statement as much as they've embraced his statements on economics.
Judging by the reaction on HuffPo, it looks like the answer is no.
The left's infatuation with Pope Francis is over now that they have discovered that he really is a Roman Catholic.
Pope JP2 lived at the intersection of great worldwide currents. And from that experience was able to inspire millions to effect great change. Pope Benedict surprised me by the depth of his theological thinking within the church. He is not the sort of Pope who gets people marching in the streets, but I am intellectually inspired by him.
This one? Argentina is an incredibly insular backwater following its own antiquated south American religio-classist politics. I've yet to get a sense that he's absorbed anything that has happened outside that bubble.
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Yes, we live in a culture where a large segment of society thinks that the only rights that another person has are the rights that they agree with. Which of course makes the whole idea of rights superfluous.
The UN?
LOL wut?
They have been showing on cable recently this movie where the title character insists, "I did my job. I followed the law. The law is the law."
We also live in a society today where a lot of people would agree with this kind of banality.
Of course in the end, that title character was hanged. And rightly so.
That's a good point. We need to use software to do marriage licenses.
"Pope Benedict surprised me by the depth of his theological thinking within the church."
Maybe that is why he had to go. This story is just getting started. Too bad Malachi Martin isn't around to write the story. He was great on Vatican intrigue.
"the gay taxpayers in that jurisdiction "
What do you estimate ? About a dozen ? I doubt that many. The gay activists are not from her district.
I wish we lived in a world where more government officials refused to obey orders that conflicted with their consciences, knowing they'd be in jail for doing so.
I don't have Kim Davis's conscience where gay marriage is concerned; nonetheless it would be a better world if more people followed her example.
(Yes, I've already heard the hypothetical "a Muslim who won't issue a woman a driver's license." I would still think it was a better world if more people would follow his example--as long as he had to go to jail.)
There are far too many people who confuse "legal" with "moral", and of those about half only believe it when it goes their way.
The question that wasn't asked, but should have been: Should she still be paid to do the job she was elected to?
The Pope has it exactly right.
As a matter of natural law, All individuals have a fundamental right to religious liberty. Without exception.
I said this weeks ago, hell it worked for thousands during Vietnam.....
The Davis case is ridiculously easy to resolve.
Take her name off the form.
The fact that the governor, whose veto of the RFRA was overwhemingly overridden by the legislature, won't toss off an executive order authorizing counties to remove the names of clerks who object to SSM or what have you, citing RFRA as the authority, simply underscores what an ass he is.
Of course Jason, we all know that this is not about same-sex couples actually getting licenses. This is all about forcing people to comply, bending them to the will of the thugocracy.
But she already has that right, Holy Guy.
She also has the right to choose a job where those tasks aren't included in the description.
Not that I expect someone who heads up a small town with a population of 842 to understand that.
Also:
...if a government official is a human person...
Hilarious. Is he outsourcing his own "officials" with robots, these days?
Granted, I understand their thinking isn't much more complex than a robot. But his officials are still, technically, "human persons". As secluded from relating to others and a normal life as they may be.
The Pope is referring in general to the moral principle that nobody can be compelled to act contrary to their conscience. That's not to say that doing will be free from consequences, but that accommodations that make sense should be made.
That's why the Kim Davis case has been so ridiculous from the start. The idea that a County Clerk's signature should be required on a certificate when they almost certainly didn't officiate and weren't present is rather absurd. The only signatures it makes sense to require are the officiant's (who is actually the one with delegated state power to act), the couple's, and possibly some witnesses.
A clerk is a recorder of already transacted business, so it would have been simple and easy to remove the requirement for her signature. Now if she refused to file the records at all, that's where accommodation really wouldn't work. The fact that there is a pretty easy accommodation and there doesn't seem to be much inclination by her opponents to concede it suggests that we're in for a nice few years of war on religious conscience in general. Whether that will turn out to be a wise war to wage remains to be seen.
The right of conscientious objection also entails responsibility. The precedent was hugely set at Nuremberg where "I vas only following orders" was judged a non-excuse.
The right of conscientious objection also entails responsibility. The precedent was hugely set at Nuremberg where "I vas only following orders" was judged a non-excuse.
How ironic to hear this applied as a criticism against the American system (which allows for humanistic correction and advances) but not to the Vatican's system - which allows almost none of those things. And was just headed before now by a former Hitler Youth.
Leave unto Ceasar...
Actually, I'm in favor of throwing all govt workers at all levels in jail. Can I getta amen?
Except state university professors of course. They should rule the world... I think.
And with that news, we will next hear from the mainstream media about Pope Francis in the year 2026 when they are electing a new pope.
I actually wondered, if the Pope had been accurately quoted on this subject. I feared that perhaps the conservative media was putting words, or at least notions, in the mind of Pope Francis.
So I read this post at the left-wing news site, ThinkProgress.com, entitled "What the Pope Really Said About Kim Davis:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/28/3706264/pope-francis-kim-davis/
And more than anything else I have read anywhere else on the 'net, that ThinkProgress breakdown convinced me that, yeah, the Pope was definitely talking about Kim Davis. Since the Pope himself never mentioned Kim Davis, I thought it might have been an arguable point. ThinkProgress tried to argue that issue and the more that the author (one Jack Jenkins) deconstructed the tick-tock of the interview, the clearer it became. Thanks, ThinkProgress; you erased any doubt in my mind.
"her rights are not being infringed"
If she is refused an otherwise reasonable accommodation, such as removing her name from certificates, they are being infringed.
@cyrus83: "The fact that there is a pretty easy accommodation and there doesn't seem to be much inclination by her opponents to concede it suggests that we're in for a nice few years of war on religious conscience in general. Whether that will turn out to be a wise war to wage remains to be seen."
Indeed. All part of one war, being fought on different fronts.
Accommodations used to be a liberal cause. Not anymore when the wrong people might benefit.
So IS the Pope Catholic?
Francis knows nothing about US law, so why should we pay attention to what he says about what the law can and cannot require a particular public official to do?
Francis knows nothing about economics, so why should we pay attention to what he says about capitalism?
Francis knows nothing about how the climate works, so why should we pay attention to what he says about "climate change"?
Francis DOES know about the problems created by a celebate priesthood, and by a priesthood open only to men. Shouldn't we ask him what he will do about these problems?
Religious freedom is not a guarantee. Both sides are wrong. For those who are for it, just because you articulate the position to object doesn't mean that the law must allow your objection. But the converse is also wrong. Just because the law is not religious does not mean you can't be exempt from it if it violates your religious freedoms.
Appropriate?
Well, there you are. Some of the Supremes are looking to international legal sources for inspiration, how about the Pope/God?
Francis knows nothing about US law, so why should we pay attention to what he says about what the law can and cannot require a particular public official to do?
Who said anything about US law? The Pope is not concerned with that. He's talking about natural law, on which all just law is based.
My relentless pursuit of the Higgs boson hasn't allowed me to be as fully informed on this issue as I should be. I get the sense that not much effort has been made to accommodate the religious views of this woman. I don't know of anyone who performed or enabled a gay marriage when it was not legal who got sent to jail. Right now, pending further developments, my sympathies are with her.........My big problem with the left is not on the issue of gay marriage, but on the way they are now demonizing those who are against it. Kim Davis is now in the kulak class. She can be ridiculed and despised by enlightened people. She has no values or beliefs that needs must be respected. They did the same thing with George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson. It's plain wrong.
The Pope just lost support of the congruence ("=") movement. Obama will raise the lackluster Rainbow flag to remind him of the politically correct moduli. Right next to the PP banner.
Question for all the self-assured out there:
Assume for the sake of argument Lois Lerner did conspire to deprive US citizens of civil rights. Assume further that one person refused the edicts of Lois Lerner, acting as boss under the authority of the Executive Branch.
Should that person be forced to resign before they can refuse the order? Assume it is a closer case, in which it is arguable that civil rights are violated and government attorneys give the IRS worker the go-ahead, but the worker still felt uncomfortable.
I think many of you give short shrift to the difficulties of these situations from a legal and policy perspective. And whether our collective default is "follow the rules" may be a bit more complicated than some are willing to allow.
YMMV
“I can’t have in mind all cases that can exist about conscience objection,” the pope told reporters on the plane. “But, yes, I can say the conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right.
I don't see any reason to interpret this statement as support for Kim Davis. When people speak of conscientious objection, they are talking about compelled action--like a soldier in war. They are not talking about elected officials being expected to perform the basic duties of the office they seeked out.
It's unclear by the article admission that the Pope may have no idea who Kim Davis is or the details.... But the Washington Post puts her in the headline.
Why is anyone reading the Pope's statements on ThinkProgress, when full transcripts are posted via the Vatican website with no journalistic click bait.
I don't have Kim Davis's conscience where gay marriage is concerned; nonetheless it would be a better world if more people followed her example.
I guess I'd be more sympathetic if the whole thing didn't smell like a stunt intended to propel her to higher office.
"If she is refused an otherwise reasonable accommodation, such as removing her name from certificates, they are being infringed."
Not to get too deep into the woods here, but if the accommodation can only be granted by an act of the state legislature--which is by no means a sure thing--is that considered a "reasonable" accommodation? It would be a bit different if she was an assistant clerk, and asked the head clerk if her name could be removed from the stamps for religious reasons, and the head clerk had the discretion to grant this but refused to.
"'her rights are not being infringed'
"If she is refused an otherwise reasonable accommodation, such as removing her name from certificates, they are being infringed."
She doesn't have the right to refuse to perform her professional duties. She has the right to assert her personal beliefs--misguided and ignorant as they may be--but she is also obliged to resign from her job if its duties include acts to which she objects for reasons of conscience.
Aside from all the commentary about Kim Davis...
Does anyone else notice that the Pope was echoing the reasoning of Citizens United?
People don't lose their right to free speech when they form a corporate entity.
People don't lose their right of conscience when they accept a position of employment (government or otherwise).
The legislature has already acted: they passed the RFRA.
Look at all these twits pretending the law doesn't exist!
Has anyone pointed out that, in refusing to perform a customary duty of her job for reasons of her religious faith, Ms. Davis--as a government official--violates the first amendment's proscription against "making...law respecting an establishment of religion..."? By exercising her power as a government official to assert a particular religious point of view, she is, in essence, "making" law based on religious tenets in refusing to accommodate all citizens equally under existing law. (Yes, this first amendment proscription applies to Congress, but am I mistaken to believe it has become generally applicable to government at all levels of federal, state, and local authority?)
"Religious liberty and individual freedom of conscience is not a "special right." It's a natural, inalienable and universal human right. The Founders might have mentioned it once or twice."
Nowhere did the founders assert it an "inalienable right" for humans or government to assert one religious (or other philosophical) belief over another. They recognized, rightly, the right of all to practice and enjoy their own faith or philosophy of life.
Yes, Cookie, when Davis took the stand she did something had to be done about it, but the trouble is that the way the Federal judge and the State governor chose was to respond as if in a contest of "Can you top this?" in the acting stupid category.
Now the left won't vote for him in the next Pope election!
The problem stems from government sanctioned marriage, not to mention all the tax benefits.
not to mention her oath of office...which she swore upon the bible to uphold?
...Aaaaaand Cookie shits the bed. Right on cue.
It is AMAZING to me that this discussion is still going on. Quakers were allowed to have noon-combatant roles in the military because of religious beliefs. The military did not (as far as I know) throw them in jail for refusing to fight; a pretty serous accommodation was made to support their religious beliefs -- long before the religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution had to be "protected" by a Congressional act. The accommodation in this specific case is trivial in comparison.
@Jason at 7:51 AM: As always, we can count on you to offer cogent, sophisticated analyses and compelling counter-argument.
As always, we can count on Cookie to fundamentally misunderstand and misapply the founding documents of this country.
Don't worry. It wasn't the first time. Won't be the last. Lefttardism is almost always a lifelong disability.
Does anyone know any good astrologers in Hyderabad?
Darrell,
Yeah, I could have used a good astrologer when I was there last week, but now I'm home. You always find this stuff out after the fact.
"Hilarious. Is he outsourcing his own "officials" with robots, these days?"
-- That was the point of the statement. For you to realize how absurd it was that someone had to ask to clarify are government workers humans. The fact you think it reflects badly on the Pope for politely, if snarkily, clarifying when he was asked a stupid question shows which way you approach the problem.
"Has anyone pointed out that, in refusing to perform a customary duty of her job for reasons of her religious faith, Ms. Davis--as a government official--violates the first amendment's proscription against "making...law respecting an establishment of religion..."?"
-- No. She does not. She has not made any law respecting an establishment of religion. I don't like what she's doing, and think we should come to a compromise that meets everyone's needs. But this? This is just uneducated gobbledegook masquerading as smart. Kim Davis cannot pass or sign any law. She is a low-level functionary.
"[S]he is not saving lives as would government employees who stood up to Hitler's laws. (none did; think "German")"
-- This is equally bilge. Many, many Germans stood up against Nazi atrocities. There's even a whole movie about a guy and his list. Maybe you heard of it?
The key to understanding that Kim Davis is not making any law establishing religion is to read the words and look up the definition of the words.
Then, compare that to what she did.
No law was made. Any action she took in no way established a religion [there are Muslims against gay marriage, atheists against gay marriage, and a variety of Christian sects against gay marriage.] She in no way established a religion by not signing a document, which also did not create a law.
Schindler was a member of the Nazi Party, a contractor with the government and a member of a German spy agency.
Matthew Sablan:
My remarks that Ms. Davis is "making law" are not be taken literally. That is, I recognize her actions are not actually making law--I should think that to be obvious. I suggest that Ms. Davis is--in effect--making law by refusing to provide U.S. citizens in her jurisdiction equal protection under existing law in refusing to perform her duties on the basis of her particular religious faith. That is, she is interpreting her obligation to perform her official duties through the prism of her religious tenets, and is selectively approving marriage licenses accordingly. If we applaud and accept this, if she were not to be sanctioned and were permitted to continue in her refusal to perform her official duties where they conflict with her religious beliefs, then other officials will have license to similarly perform their duties selectively according to their religious beliefs.
Whether a law is actually passed or not, if people cannot obtain necessary licenses, permits, or other official services because officials choose to withhold those licenses, permits and services ad hoc, the net result is the same.
Look! Another twit pretending RFRA doesn't exist!
Funny, I don't recall Cookie calling to jail county officials for refusing to issue firearms permits. They don't even have a constitutionally protected religious motivation to raise in their defense.
Funny, that.
He's only about "equal protection" when he can stick it to those icky Christians.
But those icky Jesus freaks are entitled to protection under the law, too.
That's a long way to say: "I was exaggerating for effect and, now that I'm called on it, here is my backing off."
You did not try and say it was like, or similar to. You flat out stated: "Has anyone pointed out that, in refusing to perform a customary duty of her job for reasons of her religious faith, Ms. Davis--as a government official--violates the first amendment's proscription..."
You put making in quotes, but you are trying to argue that she is making law ["in essence."]
You were trying to be clever, but it just was dumbness echoing in total anti-meaning. It was an attempt to justify a two-minute hate against her. She should find a new job or they should come to a reasonable accommodation with her; but to try and paint her as a theocratic fascist making law by her inaction is just an attempt to rile people up with some stupid, deliberate lies.
Stop trying to sound smart and actually speak plainly. Say what you want to say: What she did is a thing I don't like because it hurts people. Don't try and make yourself sound smart by trying to say things like, in essence it is making a law, is it not?
Are we going to say the IRS made laws when they acted inappropriately? Did Clinton make a law with her server? No! They broke the law; they acted immorally, etc., etc. To claim Davis MADE a law gives her action a much, much different weight than it should have. What you're saying is stupid. You're not stupid, but you keep saying these things that can only be interpreted as stupid.
And Coupe should be universally condemned for his 9:45 post.
What a vile little slimeball.
Despite the language of "rights," the Pope is making a theological argument, not a legal one. That's his purview, and since he's the authority on Catholic theology, I presume he's right. When the Pope uses the language of "human rights," he is really talking about his Religious view of natural law and how people and society and government should, from his religious point-of-view, relate to one another. The Pope speaks for his church and his god, he doesn't speak for the Constitution or laws of the United States.
That doesn't make the critics of Kim Davis any less right, because Davis' critics are making a legal argument, not a theological one. Nor, really, does it make Davis' supporters any more right--at least to the extent that they believe the Court has acted in excess of its power.
Davis herself recognizes the distinction when she argues that her god's authority supersedes that of the government. She acknowledges, implicitly, that her actions are contrary to law, but argues that her religious convictions allow her to violate the law (presumably because this law is unjust or immoral, to her eyes).
Of course, she's misrepresenting what the law actually is. The law only requires her to certify that two people meet the legal requirements for a civil marriage. Her certification does not perform a marriage, nor does it "sanction" a marriage. All she is doing is stating that she has reviewed several records, and that they comply with certain legal requirements to enter into a civil marriage--the couple are of age, and not too closely related, and therefore conform to the legal requirements to be married. That's what her signature means; nothing more, nothing less.
She doesn't need "accommodations." This is not a simple civil-servant job, but an elected position. She is not "employed" by the State, rather in her acting role as the clerk, she IS the State. The State does not have religious freedom. The State does not have freedom of conscience or freedom of religion. Her "accommodation" is to resign her office. She can become a deputy clerk and demand reasonable accommodations as an employee; she cannot demand that she be allowed to exercise the power of the government as an elected official in a manner that violates the constitution.
Oh, look. Someone else pretending that RFRA does not exist.
Tell us, Dylan... where in the KY RFRA does it exempt elected officials from protection?
#WHOOPS #POPEFAIL
Matthew Sablan, if wish you persist in thinking I was being literal, by my guest. I am not backing off from my first comment. My second comment merely spells out what I think needn't have been spelled out at all...but I forget that many here do not (or cannot) assume that which isn't stated plainly...and often even misunderstand or misconstrue that.
"Funny, I don't recall Cookie calling to jail county officials for refusing to issue firearms permits. They don't even have a constitutionally protected religious motivation to raise in their defense."
I'm not aware this is even a thing. Certainly, if county officials are selectively refusing (without legitimate legal cause) to issue firearms permits to persons who are legally permitted to obtain them, they, like Ms. Davis are violating their professional obligations (and the 2nd Amendment).
But, as I don't know the circumstances you refer to, I can speak only in general terms.
"Are we going to say the IRS made laws when they acted inappropriately? Did Clinton make a law with her server?"
To the extent laws are violated and those violating them are not sanctioned, then, yes, new law is, in effect, being made.
I took you at your literal word. You asked: "Has anyone pointed out that, in refusing to perform a customary duty of her job for reasons of her religious faith, Ms. Davis--as a government official--violates the first amendment's proscription against "making...law respecting an establishment of religion..."?"
The answer was no, because that is not what was happening. I get that you didn't mean that, and hopefully in the future, you can be clearer. But, now your question makes no sense, since you acknowledge that she obviously wasn't making any law, but was just acting in a way that... well, didn't make law or anything... Actually, I still don't get what you were trying to say if you weren't being literal.
Do you mean to say any time any government official does anything, they are, in effect, making a law? Did the EPA make a law that says they can pollute rivers without conducting due care? Did NASA make a law saying that Mars has flowing water? I mean, if we take what you are asking literally, that's the absurd conclusion we must come to: The actions of government officials are all the same as making laws.
"To the extent laws are violated and those violating them are not sanctioned, then, yes, new law is, in effect, being made."
-- This is absurd, and I can't even properly understand it. Words have no meaning at this point in our conversation.
Jason said...And Coupe should be universally condemned...
I was! I was burned at the stake, then burned three more times and the ashes shoveled into the Seine.
Ballad of the Happy People
@Jason
The RFRA will be held not to apply, should Ms. Davis elect to pursue it as a defense. The reason is that this application of the RFRA would effectively allow States, via legislation, to circumvent their duties to conform to the Constitution. This will be held to violate the Supremacy Clause. States, it will be reaffirmed, cannot pass statutes that exempt them or their agents from conducting the affairs of state in conformity with the Constitution. The only question in my mind is whether the Court will define agents of the State as elected officials only, or whether the class will be more broadly defined to include political appointments, or even employees. However the line is drawn, Kim Davis will fall outside of the RFRA protections.
Is it being asserted by a state, or by an individual? Whose name is going to be on the docket? Is it going to be Rowan County v. Kentucky or Kim Davis v. Kentucky?
Who was jailed? A county seal? Or an individual?
If a state actually asserts it, you may have a point. But we're talking about individual religious liberties, not state ones.
Further, has RFRA been overturned yet? Anywhere? If not then #lawoftheland applies.
At any rate, you agree that the statute itself does not exempt individuals who happen to be elected officials, correct? I mean, it's right there in the law. Has plenty of constitutional support for it, too, rooted right back in the 1st Amendment and a lot of other Founders' writings.
Indeed, it wasn't really controversial at all until libtards discovered it might be asserted in defense of creepy Jesus people.
And again, in this case, a suitable accommodation is trivially easy: Take the individual's name off the form.
The fact that the case has gone this far is evidence of the sheer obtuseness, petulance and sadism of the GLBT lobby.
The reason is that this application of the RFRA would effectively allow States, via legislation, to circumvent their duties to conform to the Constitution.
Reading it again, I think you came off the rails here.
If all they have to do is take her name off the form, and all the licenses required by law are issued by the county, then how is it the county is circumventing its duty to conform to the Constitution? Its duty has been fulfilled, and will continue to be fulfilled.
It's the State of KY, or maybe the mayor/board of supervisors in Rowan County, who are derelict in their duty here. RFRA is still law, and even people who take the approved position regarding icky Jesus people are bound to abide by it.
"Do you mean to say any time any government official does anything, they are, in effect, making a law? Did the EPA make a law that says they can pollute rivers without conducting due care? Did NASA make a law saying that Mars has flowing water? I mean, if we take what you are asking literally, that's the absurd conclusion we must come to: The actions of government officials are all the same as making laws."
If the actions of the government officials violate existing law, and yet they are not sanctioned, and are permitted to continue in their actions, the effective result is that new law is being made, what's on paper be damned! (Hasn't the Fourth Amendment, and any laws pertaining thereto, been rendered null and void by the new order of all-surveillance, all-the-time, everywhere?)
Look, on paper, we're a democracy, right? (A representative republic, to be exact, for the literalists...sheesh!) Freedom, fuck yeah! The leader of the Free World, you bet! The greatest country that ever existed in any universe in all infinity! So perfect we have to be sponsored by God, by Gawd!
Yet, in effect, we are a police state: our elections are farces, with a "choice" among candidates each more ignorant, cretinous, coarse, thuggish, and servile to the military/financial complex than the next; and our police forces are a de facto occupying army for whom we are those to be held in check, violently whenever even nominally necessary; and we have no real choice or voice in the governing of our nation. (Read it and weep!) No laws have been passed that have transformed us from a constitutional republic into a plutocratic tyranny...yet, so we have!
@Jason,
The caption is:
APRIL MILLER, KAREN ANN ROBERTS,
SHANTEL BURKE, STEPHEN NAPIER,
JODY FERNANDEZ, KEVIN
HOLLOWAY, L. AARON SKAGGS, and
BARRY W. SPARTMAN,
AND
ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED,
Plaintiffs,
v.
KIM DAVIS, both individually and in her
official capacity as Rowan County Clerk, and
ROWAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY,
Defendants.
You can see it here: http://www.aclu-ky.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Rowan-complaint.pdf
Ms. Davis is acting in her capacity as the State. It is a power of the State she is refusing to exercise. It is not a personal power she is refusing to exercise. Thus, it is a government official in her official capacity who was held in contempt, and against whom remedial sanctions were ordered due to continuing contempt.
The RFRA only "applies" if it is enforced. So far, the Courts have not found it to be an effective defense for Ms. Davis. Should she pursue it as a defense to higher courts, I predict the outcome I stated above.
The Court may not "overturn" the KY RFRA--indeed, given the conservative majority I doubt they will. However, I do expect the Court will find it necessary to either narrowly construe certain terms to omit Ms. Davis from its ambit, or to strike it down in part. Not being familiar with the text of the statute in question, however, it is hard to be confident exactly how the Court will reconcile the statute with Ms. Davis' unconstitutional actions.
If it's not a personal power she is refusing to exercise, why is it necessary that her name be on the document?
In response to your second point, you're anticipating litigation and parties that are not yet before the Court. Whether the legislature of Kentucky can change the duties of the clerk to avoid the constitutional question is not at issue. The question before the Court is whether the legislature can, by statute, authorize an elected official to violate the constitution. The answer to that question, should it arrive at a higher court, will be "no."
Perhaps the litigation will change as facts on the ground change, but that's how it stands now.
I wasn't referring to the court document. I was referring to the licenses themselves.
Are there individuals in Rowan County who can issue marriage license under their own personal authority? I'm not familiar with Kentucky's statutes, but my gut suspects that the power is granted to the person who occupies the office of the clerk. It's not a personal power; it's a state power authorized by statute to a state official.
As for why she's listed personally on the caption, her name is is there in her personal capacity because lawyers like to cast wide nets.
Why is her name on the license? Because she's the person holding the office of the clerk. You need to know who signed off on the license in case there is ever a question as to its authenticity or validity.
It's the same reason my name appears on a document I notarize. If there's ever a dispute, they need to be able to ask me about it.
If it's not a personal power, then take her name off the form. Problem solved.
Plus, gay people won't have to drive three hours from out of state to get a marriage license issued. Win-win.
You'll have a date and a signature of whoever signed it on the Clerk's behalf. That's plenty.
Now I think you're just being obtuse. This problem is easily solved. It's easy to see who the people are who don't want to solve it.
And really that's all she's being asked to do. She looks at some documents, checks some IDs, and certifies that "yep, I checked these people out and they meet the legal requirements to marry." She's not "condoning" or "sanctioning" the marriage any more than I am "condoning" or "sanctioning" the contents of an affidavit that I notarize. A certification or notarization is not an approbation; it's simply a statement by an authorized individual that "yes, these things are true."
She obviously doesn't believe that the assertion that a same sex couple can be married is true.
If someone presented you with something you believed was a falsehood, would you want your name on it?
I would have no objection to the legislature changing the form. I don't think anybody would object to that.
But until there is a uniform method of issuing licenses that does not discriminate unconstitutionally, Ms. Davis can't just take it upon herself and her office to do so.
Furthermore, I would have no problem with hired employees being allowed to exempt themselves from specified duties based on religious objections (although I could be persuaded otherwise). My only objection is to elected officials (and perhaps political appointments, not sure on that one) refusing to comply with the constitution in the name of religion.
I take it back, there is a little more than simple certification of the accuracy of biographical data. Here are the obligatory contents of a marriage license in Kentucky:
http://www.lrc.ky.gov/statutes/statute.aspx?id=36475
What is most likely objectionable to her is the requirement that she "authorize" an officiant to perform the marriage:
402.100(1)(a) An authorization statement of the county clerk issuing the license for any person or religious society authorized to perform marriage ceremonies to unite in marriage the persons named;
I can see why that would be objectionable to her, and perceived as a "sanction;" I stand corrected. That was not present in my marriage license, nor is it present in several other jurisdictions with which I am familiar. THe language I have seen elsewhere is that the clerk certifies that the couple "meets the legal requirements," rather than the clerk "authorizes" the marriage.
Nonetheless, while I acknowledge her position is less disingenuous than I had believed previously, that doesn't affect the fact that her legal arguments are tenuous. She has a constitutional duty and the RFRA cannot exempt her.
Ah.. At any rate, I thank you for being the first commenter on this blog that I can recall to actually deal with RFRA on a substantive basis. All of Davis's critics here have done their best to try to pretend it doesn't exist.
Perhaps changing that specific language to something closer to what's on your license is another possible remedy.
However, as the Pope has expressed, and as a matter of natural law, I would assert that qualified applicants are entitled to a license from Rowan County, or any other county, on an equal basis.
They are not, however, entitled to Kim Davis's name.
The simple remedy of removing her name from marriage licenses (and I imagine, divorce certificates, as well) fully upholds the state's obligation to the SSM applicants. It preserves the religious liberty of the individual. Nobody has to go to jail. Nobody has to drive three hours from out of state to do a media stunt and do their best to ruin someone's life. It eliminates the need for further expensive and time consuming litigation. And because of all that, it satisfies the state's obligations under RFRA.
It's easy, it's free, it respects individual liberties and dignity as well as upholds the rule of law. it's a win all around.
No wonder liberals can't abide it.
She certainly does have the right to conscientious objection--she can sit in a jail cell in contempt of court rather than issue the licenses. That's what conscientious objection is: Acceptance of the legal consequences for disobeying a law one cannot in good conscience obey. The right to conscientious objection does not imply a FREEDOM from those consequences, only the right to pay them rather than obey an unjust law.
Once Kim Davis is doing that, people can decide for themselves whether her stand is righteous and whether the laws should be changed to suit her. But it certainly doesn't mean she gets to unilaterally change the laws to suit her conscience.
OG,
Once Kim Davis is doing that
^^^^^^^^
You spelled "did" wrong.
Just got back after work, and see that Dr Robert Moynihan, who publishes the magazine Inside the Vatican, is saying, in his emailed newsletter today, that the Holy Father received Mrs Davis on Thursday, just prior to departing DC for NYC. She and her husband were in DC to receive an award of some sort from the Family Research Council. If that is true, and I personally don't doubt his word (although he does sometimes, it is true, let his hopes get the better of the details of his reportage), then the Pope will at least have been aware, when making his comments on the flight back to Rome, that there is someone actually in the news, now, for, as she sees it, refusing to obey the civil law for the sake of her conscience. Dr Moynihan writes that the meeting was private and not publicised precisely to avoid the politics of the thing while the Apostolic Visit was ongoing. I see online that the Davis attorney has been quoted about this meeting, too.
The cognitive dissonance among the libtards, having discovered that Francis met with Davis, is entertaining indeed to behold.
"That's what conscientious objection is"
Really? Because you were all for it when you dodged the draft.
Funny how those "principles" are so adaptable...
Post a Comment