So this topic may cause a bit of a flame fest but I'll ask you all to keep it civil and discuss without abuse and insult. Recently a clerk in a Kentucky Kim Davies ,was sent to jail for contempt of court following her refusal to abide by a several federal court rulings. She had been instructed to issue marriage licenses to lgbt couples who wished to marry following the supreme courts decision. She refused to do so also refused the comprise of allowing her staff to issue the licences on the states behalf. She claims that the issuing of licenses to lgbt couples violates her religious freedoms. Does religious freedom top the equality under the law the Supreme Court has ruled on? Does one woman's stand out-way the right of couples to engage in a legal Union ? Did she refuse the comprise to cause the controversy ?
so she only had to sign some papers on behalf of the government, right? Her opinion doesnt come into play there.
It's simple. You have a right to your religious beliefs, but no right to hold a job where your religious beliefs prevent you from carrying out your duties at that job. Find another job. Not to worry though...she'll rake in the dough from supporters and will never need to work again!
So it's ok to prejudice against religion but not against gays? Why not just get someone who isn't religious to sign the papers and respect people's beliefs. I'm not even religious but seems the common sense thing to do.
What this dude said. If her religious views get in the way of her job (or vice Versa) it's time to find another job. You could find another religion, but that would probably be a lot harder.
Seems the issue is she refused to allow one of her staff to sign the license, I can understand religious freedoms and would never expect anyone to be forced to perform a ceremony against their faith, but she's not been asked to do that. She's been asked to grant non religious licenses to individuals who have every legal right to marry. It's part of the job she ran to be elected to she takes the pay checks she has to do the job not just the parts she likes.
It's like a catholic working in an abortion clinic. If your religion interferes with your work don't do that job. If she refuses to complete the paperwork her job requires which she is bound by contract to complete then that's her issue.
No ones discriminating against her. She is refusing to perform the duties she SWORE an OATH to perform. If she has a problem HONORING her SWORN OATH then maybe she should reevaluate A.) her profession and B.) Her standard of morals. I mean 3 time devorcee here obviously HONORS the sanctity of marriage because she obviously SUBMITTED herself to her former 3 husbands right? At least that's the Biblical definition of marriage. Either way it's all hogwash. Tired of Christians thinking they invented everything that has to do with morality. Most modern Christians commit their first deadly sin with every breath they preach.
Simple really, A. She is entitled to have religious beliefs and opinions. Her employer and/or our Government has no right to take those away or force her to act against those beliefs. That said she needs to find another job that legislation does not mandate such things from happening if she is unhappy with the law changes. B. This all could have been avoided if the lgbtqrstuuv (sarcasm there) movement leaders chose another word for their life union/ partnership. The conservatives and Christian people only oppose the word marriage to be used outside of it's biblically defined 1 man and 1 woman. Call it a "life Union" for example and the argument dies.
Then you are out casting lbgt Christians. What right does man have to judge? If god has a problem with it then I'm sure he will deal with it by sending them to hell or whatever.
This isn't about religion at all. If she truly held such religious convictions, she would have resigned the minute she knew her job would entail doing something that compromised her beliefs. She didn't. Instead, she took this as an opportunity to impose her personal will on people who wanted a legally sanctioned right. She is like a person who instead of going to her church, goes to a different religion's house of worship and disrupts their rituals because she wants to impose her will on them. "All rise . . . " "NO!! You all keep sitting because you, unlike me, have a FALSE god!!!!" Being hateful towards people is not a christian value. No-one is forcing her to change her beliefs or do something she believes interferes with her version of her religion. Working for the government is a privilege, not a right, and if the job requires certain actions she cannot take, she should resign, as the truly pious would do. This isn't about religion, this is about one woman's power trip to impose her personal will on others who have done nothing bad to her.
Kim was a Christian with her heart messed up. She should have passed the lgbt couples to another co-worker. She didn't. She was wrong. It happens. What disgusts me is people digging into her life and pulling out painful divorces and attacking her. Let the court punish her, and not everyone else in this vindictive country.
Let's open a big can of worms .. What would people say if instead of being a Christian it had been a devout Muslim ? Would the freedom of religion argument be made with such ferocity if it was any other religious group ?
This is an interesting case. This is a situation where everyone is acting like 12 year olds. I'll start with the gay side first...... There are 130 counties where gays in Kentucky can tie the knot, but.... THEY CHOOSE THE ONE COUNTY WHERE A CLERK HAS A PROBLEM WITH IT. Why? The answer is that they want to make a point. They want that particular woman to sign their marriage license precicely because she doesn't want to, so they are being bullies. All of those gay coupled could get married right next door, or in the next county with zero trouble or effort. They are acting like bullies. Now, for the county clerk. She DOES have a job to do, and she is required by law and a court order to do it. Failure to obey the law leads to anarchy. To a larger point however, how many politicians have gone lawless??? How many laws have senators and presidents broken? The answer is "tons" and no one goes after them. Instead, the media chooses to swarm down on a lowly county clerk in Kentucky. There are honestly bigger fish to fry. So, what's my moosey answer? Well, Utah has a nice compromise. In Utah, if a county clerk has a moral objection to signing a gay marriage license, they don't have to, BUT, there needs to be a clerk on staff during all working hours that IS willing to. This compromise allows people with religious objections to gay marriage to keep their jobs while still allowing gays to excercise their right to marry. (Side note: I part ways with Davies because Kentucky has a solution like this but Davies won't let her clerks sign the marriage documents either, so she's got to go) Everyone wins. Simple. The flap in Kentucky is just a peeing match between two groups of people and the media loves it because it fans flames and sells air time.
I personally think she deserves to be put in prison. What she's doing is just straight up breaking the law, breaking someone's basic human rights just because of her own religious prejudice. You could say the same with islamic state beheading people. They feel what they're doing is right based off of their religion and breaking human rights. It's exactly the same principle. Sure it's not the same action, beheading people will kill them but it's the same basic principle of using religion as an excuse to flat out abuse someone's human rights.
Religion can be very dangerous in this time and age. Your beliefs will be confronted and challenged. This is one of those cases where a child of God, as many Christians refer to themselves, is coming to clash with the rule of law. Imagine the pressure of being a Christian intermingling with a modern society where there are individuals who have never known what it was like to be Christian; that pressure is enormous. Imagine living that life day by day, committing to your duty as a Christian. I don't know what led her to choose to be in a position where she was issuing marriage clerks at such a time when LGBT rights, very new, very controversial for Christians, have become part of federal law. There's nothing I can find in the news about that, about what led her to be in that position where her beliefs would become conflicted with her duty as a government clerk. Despite getting a deal to issue same-sex marriage permits to couples in exchange for her release, she's chosen to stay in jail. Even with that decision, her deputy clerks have begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Kim Davies has become a symbol of religious opposition to same-sex marriage; her name is going to go down in history. And people will condemn her for it. She will be stepped on by the words of observers pro-separation of church and religion, praised by religious leaders who hear of her, and otherwise dismissed by the neutral.