Can everyone who declares that this Kentucky bigot is Rosa Parks please shut up and stop displaying their ignorance? Rosa Parks was about expanding civil liberties. Davis is about curtailing them. The two could not be more dissimilar.
You know what I love? Everyone who is quick to declare, “Well, of course she has the right to her beliefs.” Here’s a nutty idea: let’s argue she doesn’t. How about the idea that some concepts are so stupid, so backward, that people are NOT entitled to those beliefs? I mean, I don’t see people who are her supporters declaring, “Well, of course homosexuals have a right to be gay.” Why not? Because they DON’T believe that. They think that gays do NOT in fact have that right because it’s declared in the bible that they do not have that right. You know, the same book that says you shouldn’t eat shrimp.
So maybe it’s time we started treating people like Kim Davis in the exact same way that people like her treat the folks they don’t like. I say she has as much right to her opinion as gays have to be gay…and if she thinks they don’t have that right, then neither does she.
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OMG This has become a freakshow. These Green Acre rejects demonstrate a level of intellect, on a scale of genius to mushroom, don’t even qualify for fungal. I have people I know that are hurrah-ing this B-Thumper, and they don’t get why I look at them as if they just grew horns and turned aquamarine. I’ve been watching this unfunny comedy since it started, and I wonder how many psychoanalysts are watching this for potential patients.
On the OT, loved the New Frontier book.
This is the first time something like this got me fired up enough to go to a politician’s FB page (Huckabee) and strongly suggest he re-read the constitution, especially the bit about how no government official can make laws, policies, or deny service based on their religious beliefs, and that it’s tragic he needs it spelled out for him that this is not “persecution” or “criminalizing of Christianity”.
I do find it ironic that none of these yobos realize that part of the reason the “christian” founding fathers they’re so fond of misquoting actually started this country was to get AWAY from nonsense like this…
You don’t understand. Huckabee knows what the Constitution says. He was the Governor of Arkansas, after all. He just disagrees with it.
Huckabee is on video record stating in 2008 that the Constitution is subordinate to the Holy Bible, and that where it conflicts, the Constitution should be amended to bring it in line with the Bible. “It is easier to change the Constitution than it is to change the Word of the living God.”
As for the Founders and Framers, we know exactly how many of them were the particular kind of Christianity represented by most of the Christianists like Huckabee. It’s a nice, round number: Zero! None! Zip! Nada! Zilch! Not a single one of them was, and we know that for an absolute fact!
How do we know this? Because while they may claim that their beliefs are simply “Born-Again” or “non-denomintional” or even “just plain Bible-believing” fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, this branch of Protestantism actually does have an official name: it’s called “Dispensationalism” (so named because it divides the history of the world into “Dispensations” in which the Lᴏʀᴅ “dispenses” increasing knowledge of Himself — each new Dispensation has an earthly Head and different rules for salvation — Dispensationalism holds that we currently live in the Dispensation of Grace aka the Church Age headed by the Apostle Paul, so Paul’s writings take precedence for us even over the words of Christ where they contradict! Dispensationalism is where we get the concept of the “Rapture” [a word appearing exactly zero times in the Bible in any form or variation], etc.).
And how do we know that none of the Framers nor Founders were Dispensationalists? Because Dispensationalism hadn’t even been invented yet! Like Mormonism (itself Dispensationalist on a technicality), Dispensationalism is a Nineteenth Century cult of Christianity. Its inventor, its “Joseph Smith” if you will, was John Nelson Darby who wasn’t even born until November 18, 1800. To refresh your memory: Bill of Rights, 1791. Constitution written 1787 and ratified 1788. Declaration of Independence, (July 4,) 17 76.
Dispensationalism didn’t start to become popular until long after Darby was dead and gone. The man who popularized it was Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield who made the Old Scofield Reference Bible (aka the Scofield Study Bible and other variants on the name), first published in 1909 and its most popular revision done in 1917. There are still, here in late 2015, people alive who are older than that!
The Scofield Bible takes the popular revision of the KJV (not Darby’s own translation) and intersperses it with copious footnotes and study aids interpreting the passages from a strictly Dispensationalist POV. Unlike most Bibles, these notes aren’t at the bottom of the page, but are in a narrow column down the middle, which makes them quicker to find (usually right alongside the verse with the reference superscript) but also visually and psychologically gives them near-equality with the actual scriptural text down the left and right columns.
Thus many people who used this Bible (which became one of the best selling versions ever) would recall reading Dispensationalist views in the scripture, when actually it was in the notes.
I applaud you for doing that as I have done, even though i feel it’s wasted on another lunatic going “LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU BECAUSE GOD SPEAKS ONLY TO MEEEEEEEE!!!!!”
He’s another reason we need better mental health care.
The way I hear evangelicals say it, it’s “hate the sin, not the sinner,” so theoretically many of them allow gays to be gay, just not to act on it. Splitting hairs, of course, but part and parcel of a religious view which holds that God created the human body but don’t you dare use it for one of His intended purposes, to have pleasure.
People like Davis have a very strange view of religious liberty. To them it means the ability, not only to practice their religion, but to impose it’s standards on everyone else whether they follow that religion (or tiny sub-branch thereof) or not. To them, restricting them from persecuting others is exactly the same as attempting to outlaw their beliefs entirely. They see no difference.
They’re never willing to take an honest look at where that logic leads. It means that a pastafarian follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster could refuse to issue a license unless the couple wore colanders at the wedding and the priest was dressed as a pirate.
Now believe it or not I’m playing devils advocate here, I myself am surprised she lasted 3 or 4 court orders to do her job before they finally put her in jail. To me it hits very close to someone refusing to marry a biracial couple because of their goofy beliefs. but, She was, for very good reason, finally put away for her refusal to do her job and uphold the law.
How is this different than sanctuary cities refusing to deport illegal immigrants? It is a law and they are blatantly refusing to uphold it.
The one thing about that bizarre post-release press conference/hate rally that brought a smile to my face was this: http://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2015/09/09/overheard-at-kim-davis-release-from-prison
Ok…that’s funny! Thanks for sharing!
I am just waiting for the announcement that she’ll be starring in her own reality series , ” Douchebags for Jesus “
Yeah, co-hosted by that Duggar kid.
But many people ARE pretty effing dumb.
It’s too bad that martyrdom has fallen so far. I mean, it used to be that you’d at least have to die for your beliefs to even get consideration.
Kim Davis makes twice-dead Jesus cry.
First, this whole story makes me sad that THE DAILY SHOW is on hiatus. Now that I got that out of the way…
Second, I’m a strong believer that if you agree to do a job, you have to do all the duties of that job; and if you’re not self-employed, you can’t pick and choose which aspects of that job to do. If I work for [insert retail store or bookstore here] and my job is to put out the newly released books, if I refuse to put out certain books because I decided they go against my religious beliefs, I’ll be fired — and I *should* be fired. I can’t tell my employer “You’re paying me to put out all the new books, but I think this author is immoral, so I won’t put them out — and I’m not quitting, and you still have to pay me.”
Third, as an editorial observed, Kim Davis is closer to Governor George Wallace than Rosa Parks. Davis isn’t refusing to follow what she considers an unjust law and accepting the consequences, like Parks; Davis decided the law is unjust and trying to refuse the rights the law gives to Americans, like Wallace did when he tried to prevent segregation.
Fourth, Huckabee should be ASHAMED that, as a presidential candidate, he’s claiming the Supreme Court can be ignored in favor of a state law the SC declared unconstitutional. By that reasoning, Brown vs. Board of Education could have been ignored by states that didn’t revise their own laws.
For that matter, stop whining that when judges or the Supreme Court make a decision that people don’t like, it’s :judicial activism” by a person/bunch of people that were never elected. Judges were never elected democratically, and that never bothers these people when making decisions they agree with.
And finally, there’s still supposed to be a separation of church and state in this country. If people want to start ignoring the Supreme Court and their duties as government officials because of religious beliefs, they should start explaining why they want to replace our democracy with a theocracy.
“Huckabee should be ASHAMED that, as a presidential candidate, he’s claiming the Supreme Court can be ignored in favor of a state law the SC declared unconstitutional.”
At least the bozo hasn’t been elected President … yet. Our Canadian Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) had unilaterally decided to do away with a Marketing Board which had been created many years back by the Federal government. Whether this was a good idea or not, the problem lies with the fact that many farmers were not pleased with the way he was doing it and pointed out the original Act creating the Board said there had to be consultation before such things could happen.
Consultations is not something our ‘my way or the highway’ PM is particularly known for.
The farmers said they’d take him to court over it.
Harper publicly responded with “courts are irrelevant” and went ahead anyway.
And you think you’ve got problems?
“John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” – Andrew Jackson, ignoring the SCOTUS decision forbidding the relocation of the Cherokee.
We were had it first.
Ok, I should know better, but SOMEONE has to post the contrarian view here, so it might as well be me…
She did not say someone could not be gay. As an elected official, she stated that SHE could not, in good conscience, sign marriage licenses for folks her beliefs stated could not get married. Unfortunately, in our present society, minorities have found that, to increase their influence and privileges, they can’t force their will through the legislatures or via referendums, so instead they prevail on the courts to usurp the legislative role to force societal change. So, in her case, the LAW, as passed by legislatures, says one thing, but a judge has decided otherwise. In her beliefs, she was elected to do her job.
Now, in comparing this to race, there is one big difference – racial equality was the law, properly passed by congress and signed by the President. Gay marriage has ONLY been supported by the courts, not the Congress!
It really does make a difference.
Nationally, Americans approve of marriage equality by about 70%-75%, so that’s hardly a minority. (I have little doubt as marriage equality continues and increases, folks like CharlieE will go from claiming the “minorities” are forcing the change to that “religious minorities” are being persecuted.)
And (going to an earlier point), if her job requires you to issue marriage licenses to anyone who qualifies, and the Supreme Court says that includes gay as well as straight couples, she should either do what her job requires or leave the job. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs; no one is entitled to pick and choose what parts of a job they’ll do because of their beliefs, and then keep that job.
Your argument fails to address the one salient point in all this: Nobody, in ANY government job, has the “right” to refuse someone services based on their religious beliefs. PERIOD. That’s the way it’s been since BEFORE the gay marriage ruling, people just never seemed to notice that before until they found something to complain about. It’s spelled out in the constitution. There can be NO laws based on ANY religion. There really is NO wiggle room on that.
This has nothing to do with minorities “usurping the law”, they’re following it to the letter as written by our founding fathers. The constitution fully allows this, and backs up the supreme court ruling, much as some may wish it otherwise
The supreme court ruling simply states that the anti-gay marriage laws were unconstitutional because there is NO legal reason to deny them a marriage license. NONE. All arguments to the contrary are purely faith-based and as such have NO PLACE in the drafting of laws, state or otherwise. Congress doesn’t need to “do” anything in this case. No “new” law was made. All they did was say that the anti-gay state laws were unconstitutional and had to go, which is THEIR JOB.
Understanding the way this country was set up. It really DOES make a difference.
Except she wasn’t simply refusing to sign marriage certificates for gay couples; she was intimidating *other* clerks into not signing as well.
When your religious beliefs start to get in the way of your job… you need to get a new job. Period.
That’s not actually true, at least in terms of ordinary employment. The law is that employers are obligated to make reasonable accomodations for religious practices of their employees (see, for instance, the Muslim flight attendant who objected to serving alcohol — the airline did allow that for her by having another attendant do that, and even allowed her to wear her headscarf as part of her flight attendant uniform, but then another coworker complained [using anti-Muslim slurs] and the airline reacted wrongly).
That said, County Clerk is an elected office in Kentucky (that’s why she can’t be simply fired), and I’m not sure how the law would apply in such a case. Her “employer” is the people of Rowan County (not just the ones who voted for her, but all of them).
No, it makes no difference.
The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress and the president and upheld Supreme Court scrutiny and the right still wants to repeal it. There’s no reason to believe that the same wouldn’t have happened with any gay rights legislation that went through Congress.
Stop playing Calvin Ball. Just admit that there are no situations where you and others will support the rights of gays.
They are not “forcing” rights on anyone. They just don’t wish to be discriminated against.
Actually, no, it doesn’t. Civil rights are civil rights, you don’t get to deny them to certain members of the population just because your religion tells you that what they do is icky or because it squicks you personally out. That’s what the SCOTUS decision enforced. It didn’t “redefine marriage” or “create new laws just for gay people” or any other such horse manure.
What this woman did was not merely to say “I personally cannot issue same sex marriage licenses.” She also said she wouldn’t resign from her job, in spite of the fact that she was no longer willing to do that job, and she also refused to let her deputy clerks do that job in her stead. She made herself a living bulwark for thwarting the law as it now stands in every single way that she could. THAT’S why she got in trouble and was put in jail, for far too short a time as far as I’m concerned. If she had done the honorable thing by saying “I can’t do this job the way the law now says I have to, so I’m stepping down,” she wouldn’t have gone to jail. Had she said “I’m not going to do this, but my deputy clerks can do so if they want to,” no one would have had much problem with that. It was her flat-out refusal to step aside and get out of the way that made her the pariah she is now.
Interesting you brought up Rosa Parks. One person I was discussing this with (read, him spouting comments and not listening to me) asked why those gays couldn’t just drive 20 minutes to another county and get a license. I asked him what he would’ve told blacks during segregation. Surely it would be easier to sit in the back of a bus than drive twenty minutes. He said they weren’t the same.
Given that the judge’s order releasing her set exactly the same conditions as the one tgat disobeying got her jugged foi contempt in the first place, i give it a week before she talks her way back in.
For a rather longer time, this time,
What’s the max jolt for contempt of court?
Stuart Carlson nails it.
http://gawker.com/kim-davis-for-president-scenes-from-a-pro-kim-davis-1729059086#_ga=1.136054449.1007962909.143827797
What a diverse crowd of old obese white people…
From a self-confessed partisan RINO: http://politicalomnivore.blogspot.com/2015/09/kim-davis-rosa-parks-or-bus-driver.html
Like I saw a friend post on facebook: “Kim Davis is not Rosa Park. She is the bus driver who refused to drive the bus when Rosa did not move”.
Why can’t we find a county clerk who is a Quaker or seventh day Adventist who is willing to refuse to sign gun permits because of his or her religious beliefs?
That reminds me of a headline (sadly, only a headline) from the Onion: “Christian Scientist Pharmacist Refuses to Fill Any Prescriptions.”
Because then instead of screaming “religious freedom”, the conservatives would be screaming “constitutional rights”. It’s whatever works for their agenda,
She absolutely does have a right to her beliefs, Peter. What she *doesn’t* have, however, is a right to force those beliefs upon others.
I bet every single one of the people claiming “religious freedom!” would be demanding that a Hindu server who refused to bring them their steak be fired. Or a Quaker who refused to issue a gun permit. Or a vegan who refused to issue a hunting license (I know, I know, not a religion, but it falls under “trying to force your beliefs upon others). How ’bout the Orthodox Jew who refused to sell them a poly-cotton blend?
If she can’t in good conscience do her job… then she needs to find another job. It’s as simple as that. She is free to believe whatever she wants… right up until the point where she uses her official government job to try to foist said beliefs upon anyone else. At that point, she’s free to find another job.
Exactly. She has an obligation to carry out the duties of the job she was elected to do. She should have resigned and got another job if she didn’t agree with the new law. By refusing to give a out a licence she is forcing her views on someone. That is what she is paid to do. It makes me sick to think that she is walking away from a very well paid elected job ($80 K per year) to force her opinions on some innocent persons just trying to live their lives and get a marriage licence. For 80 thousand dollars a year I’d gladly leave my job and grant licences to people who just want get married.
“How about the idea that some concepts are so stupid, so backward, that people are NOT entitled to those beliefs?”
I’d disagree with that. She absolutely has the right to be entitled to her beliefs no matter how backwards and stupid. What she does not have the right to do is use her government job to push her beliefs on others through that job in defiance of the law of the land. She is a civil servant. Her job is to serve the community; all of the community. If she can’t do that, she needs to find a new job.
I also find the Huck/Fox News/GOP Presidential hopefuls crew stepping over each other to be the loudest one praising her stand to be hilarious. If this were a Muslim elected official refusing to do something because of religious beliefs, every jáçkášš treating her like some courageous figure would be foaming at the mouth while screaming about creeping Sharia law in the US.
I do agree wholeheartedly that she’s not MLK though. If we’re talking famous Civil Rights era figures, she’s far closer to George Wallace than she is MLK.
How about if she were a Quaker (a variant of Christian, but not of the Dispensationalist flavor) and refused to issue firearm permits? What would the right-wing have to say about her then?
All rights have restrictions to prevent infringement on the rights of others. For instance, my Freedom of the Press doesn’t allow me to take one of Peter David’s novels and sell it to a publisher as my own work. My Freedom of Speech doesn’t permit me to share with potential competitors how some alpha or beta software works that I signed an NDA regarding, nor does it permit me to knowingly and maliciously utter defamatory lies about someone (slander), and likewise Freedom of the Press doesn’t permit the print equivalent, libel.
So it is with Freedom of Religion. You can believe anything you want. You can even preach it. You can even practice it, but only insofar as such would not infringe on the rights of others.
Say, for instance, that I sincerely believed in the pre-Cortéz Mexica (aka “Aztec”) religion. Among other things, that would mean that I believed that the great war god Huitzilopochtli absolutely required mass human sacrifice so that he can drink the blood of the sacrificial victims (whose hearts are ripped out of their chests while still beating) for his divine sustenance and power to provide military victories to the Mexica armies.
I’d be free to believe that all I want, and even to practice it. But the moment I try to actually perform such a sacrificial ritual, depending on how far I get, I would become guilty of at least attempted mass murder and subject to the full penalty for same. My Freedom of Religion would be no defense, because I would be violating the Right to Life of the prospective or actual victims.
Ooops, “practice” in the last ¶ should’ve been “preach” (thou shalt not post on too little sleep).
>>“How about the idea that some concepts are so stupid, so backward, that people are NOT entitled to those beliefs?”
>I’d disagree with that. She absolutely has the right to be entitled to her beliefs no matter how backwards and stupid.
Does this include those who refuse to have their kids vaccinated and preach to all who will listen to do likewise? Doesn’t just put themselves and their kids at risk, but anyone who comes in contact with those non-vaccinated idiots.
“Does this include those who refuse to have their kids vaccinated and preach to all who will listen to do likewise? Doesn’t just put themselves and their kids at risk, but anyone who comes in contact with those non-vaccinated idiots.”
Sure, you can believe any nutty, anti-science bs you want to believe. You’re perfectly entitled to have your beliefs on anything. But your example, like the issue at hand, goes beyond just your belief having an impact on you and you alone. As a society, we have the right to tell the individual that there are some things that must be done regardless of your belief because it involves your belief impacting negatively on others or even endangering them.
Someone having the right to believe something that makes them look like an idiot does not take away the right of society to call them an idiot and correct any actions of the idiot when it comes to integrating into society as a whole.
I find it really sad that in a week where scientists have discovered a hitherto unknown species of man, that will expand our knowledge of the world we live in even further, there are still people in this country that still think The Flintstones is a documentary.
OMG!! I wish there was a like button on this page!
We mock, because these folks frustrate and annoy us and we can’t think of anything more substantive to do, but understand, our mockery is a big, BIG part of the divide. Evangelicals look at the folks mocking them and see elitist secularists who spit on their values and don’t share their culture and otherwise hate, marginalize, and look down on them; Non-evangelicals look at evangelicals and see backwards, superstitious, bigoted hicks who deserve to be, and frequently are, left behind by the rest of society.
I don’t agree with evangelicals even one little bit, but I understand what it is they’re afraid of, even if I think their fear is exaggerated and that they’re being manipulated. Mocking them is only a pressure valve for our irritation, and solves nothing. Still, ultimately I suppose, it may be all we can do.
Oh, and Kim Davis should just be impeached for refusing to do her job. She’s not gonna bend, given that she feels it a “strength of my convictions” issue. To paraphrase Malcolm Reynolds, you can’t reason (or bully, bribe, or bargain) with someone who feels they’re right with God.
And honestly, if any particular group of people feels their faith precludes them from operating in modern society then, in the US at least, they’re free to emulate the Amish or any of the several other similar religous sects in the US that don’t participate in greater public life. They wouldn’t vote or hold public office, but they wouldn’t pay taxes or be drafted either. It would take a lot of sacrifice, but what’s that if their faith is strong, right? We’d see if they really mean what they claim or are just blowing smoke.
“So maybe it’s time we started treating people like Kim Davis in the exact same way that people like her treat the folks they don’t like. ”
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. —Proverbs 26:4
Or to modify a quote attributed to Twain, “Never argue with a fool by using their tactics; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
No, she is NOT Rosa Parks.
She is the bus driver who refused to move the bus until Ms. Parks went to what he considered her ‘proper place’
Shame on Kim Davis.
Fifty years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, people who would have condemned it at the time are able to co-opt Rosa Parks. We need to start holding people accountable for the views they have *when it mattered.* The current anti-gay politicians should be allowed to “come around” and maintain a public position in 20 years or so. They should be ignored as the relics they are.
To Peter’s point: No, you can’t really “tolerate’ anti-gay views. Historically, a minority group has never achieved equal rights when it was still deemed socially acceptable to consider that group inferior. Blacks, Jews, Irish… the list goes on.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, it was deemed socially acceptable to oppose interracial marriage. You could still publicly do this in the South. However, even now, a Republican probably couldn’t get elected in South Carolina if he stated that he was opposed to “race mixing” or stated anti-black or anti-Jewish views — he or she would have to at least use code terms.
Kim Davis is also a massive hypocrite she is been married 4 times and chances are she’s had affairs when she was married.
“Chances are?” It’s already known that while married to her first husband she conceived a child out of wedlock with the man whom she married third and then later divorced. So yeah, definitely had an affair. But she’s a devout Christian now so ostensibly none of that matters. Slate wiped clean and all that.
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