The date was September 1, 2015, a Tuesday. It was an unusual day at the Rowan County courthouse in Kentucky. County Clerk Kim Davis arrived shortly before 7:00 a.m. Awaiting Davis were dozens of reporters and a few lawyers. The media was hoping for fireworks. It was about to get them.
Curiously, the U.S. Constitution explicitly protects religious freedom … But this was the New America.
As soon as the office opened, two women, April Miller and Karen Roberts, both friends of Davis who were in the process of suing Davis, led the way to the counter to ask for a marriage license. Also present were two men, David Moore and David Ermold, likewise seeking a marriage license. (READ MORE from Paul Kengor: The American Spectator’s Conservative Counterculture)
The whole thing was surreal, really. Unimaginable even two decades earlier, when Senate Democrats sided with Republicans in passing the Defense of Marriage Act. But thanks to America’s intrepid progressives, we now lived in a surreal culture. A new thing was invented that theretofore never existed in the history of Western civilization, or any civilization: something called “same-sex marriage.” Obviously, it violated Biblical law, natural law, the Judeo-Christian tradition. For Christians like Kim Davis, it contravened the Scriptural teaching about marriage being between a man and a woman who leave their parents and become one flesh — the very words of Jesus Christ invoking the Book of Genesis (see Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:4-6).
Unfortunately for Kim Davis, America’s progressives had jettisoned two millennia of religious teachings and imposed upon all 50 states a non-existent “constitutional right” to same-sex marriage. The federal government, via the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in the Obergefell decision the previous June, declared null and void 50 state marriage laws. In one fell-swoop, the high court’s liberal justices, led by swing-vote justice Anthony Kennedy — the worst of President Ronald Reagan’s appointees — had taken the unprecedented step of the state redefining marriage.
And now, Kim Davis, a state employee who issued marriage licenses, had to submit to Caesar.
The same-sex couples that showed up that morning knew that. So did the liberals in Kentucky and the national media. It was time for a showdown.
“No licenses today,” figured April and Karen. The two Davids, however, were undeterred. “We’re going to ask,” said David Moore. Looking in Davis’ direction, David Ermold scolded: “This is terrible. What she has done is unconscionable, it’s unforgivable, it’s absolutely, absolutely ludicrous.”
Kim Davis recounts the moment in her memoirs. She approached the two men with a friendly smile, which they didn’t like. “Don’t smile at me,” Ermold snapped.
“Why shouldn’t I smile at you?” Davis asked gently. “I’m not being disrespectful to you.”
“You absolutely have disrespected us,” Ermold answered. His partner, David Moore, asked Davis: “Would you do this to an interracial couple?”
“A man and a woman?” responded Davis. “No.”
A good answer from Kim Davis. An obvious answer. Marriage, after all, is between a man and a woman. If an interracial couple is comprised of a man and a woman, it isn’t violating Biblical law.
With that reply, the two Davids went silent, but the mob cut loose, shouting insults at Kim Davis about her marital status (she was divorced). The forces of “diversity” and “tolerance” spewed their hate at the besieged marriage clerk — all the while accusing Davis of hate.
Of course, no one can hate like a liberal. And liberals especially hated what Kim Davis did next. That is, what and who she appealed to. Davis released this statement:
I have worked in the Rowan County Clerk’s office for 27 years as a Deputy Clerk and was honored to be elected as the Clerk in November 2014, and took office in January 2015. I love my job and the people of Rowan County.… In addition to my desire to serve the people of Rowan County, I owe my life to Jesus Christ who loves me and gave His life for me…. I love my Lord and must be obedient to Him and to the Word of God.
I never imagined a day like this would come, where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage. To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or Hell decision. For me it is a decision of obedience.
Davis, an elected Democrat, noted that she was receiving death threats. Nonetheless, she affirmed, “I cannot violate my conscience.”
The judge demanded otherwise. Curiously, the U.S. Constitution explicitly protects religious freedom in the first words of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. But this was the New America. Previously non-existent “gay marriage rights” now took constitutional precedent.
Liberals, of course, have long been champions of conscientious exemption … But with same-sex marriage, they suddenly tossed those beliefs to the rubbish bin.
And so, two days later, Thursday, September 3, liberals do what they do best: state coercion. The 49-year-old Kim Davis was sent to jail. She was given an orange prison suit and handcuffed and shackled. A chain was wrapped around her waist that fell to her feet, which she dragged along. (READ MORE: It’s the Season of the Witch)
Liberals loved it. LGBTQ advocates gathered outside the courthouse with shouts of “hypocrite” and “homophobe” and “Hitler.” One person held a sign that screamed: “Kim Davis, F— You!”
The cross-examination of Davis was done by ACLU attorney Bill Sharp. The same ACLU that vows to protect civil liberties. Here’s an excerpt from the chilling exchange:
Sharp: [You believe] God’s authority supersedes this Court’s authority?
Davis: He supersedes everything, sir.
Sharp: And that includes this Court’s authority?
Davis: Yes, sir.
Sharp: You interpret the Court’s preliminary injunction ruling as contrary to God’s will?
Davis: I do.
Sharp: As contrary to God’s law?
Davis: I do.
Sharp: As contrary to what you’ve described as natural law?
Davis: I do.
Sharp: But you chose to disobey the Court’s order because of your sincerely held religious beliefs?
Davis: I have.
Kim Davis cited not only God. She would also cite Martin Luther King, Jr. And liberals really hated that.
While in prison, Davis took solace in King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. She saw how King, like her, understood that not all laws are moral, or just — especially when they violate God’s laws, natural law, and one’s freedom of conscience. Davis stated in her memoirs:
With the threat to natural marriage growing, Christians and people of faith and moral conviction had to consider if they would respond to the threat to their freedom as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had a generation earlier. When he was jailed for violating a law used to stop him from protesting injustice, Dr. King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In it, he gave his rationale for his action in which he made a distinction between just and unjust laws.
Davis continued in her (proper) interpretation of King. She noted that King was not a lawbreaker. “I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws,” King wrote. “One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”
Davis directly invoked King and Augustine. The Rev. Dr. King had invoked not only Augustine, but Aquinas. With elegance, King wrote:
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, “how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just and there are unjust laws. I would agree with Saint Augustine that, “An unjust law is no law at all.”
Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
King believed that a religious person has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. As Kim Davis interpreted, those being persecuted for resisting unjust marriage laws, or laws that violate their conscience regarding marriage laws, have a duty to resist those laws.
Liberals, of course, have long been champions of conscientious exemption, such as when seeking to avoid being drafted into combat. But with same-sex marriage, they suddenly tossed those beliefs to the rubbish bin. Today, MLK-admiring progressives bully, harass, fine, sue, shut down, smear, demonize, and dehumanize Christian bakers or florists or clerks who don’t bow to their redefinition of the multi-millennial Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage. These people of conscience are forced to follow laws they consider unjust and immoral, that are not rooted in eternal law. In response? Liberals grant them no toleration; to the contrary, they ruin them. They jail them. They hate them. (READ MORE: The Dodgers of Perpetual Indulgence Strike Out)
How could progressives reconcile such abusive behavior with the thinking of one of their icons, the Rev. Dr. King? The answer is that they ignore King’s words, assuming they have learned about them — even in an era when King’s Birmingham jail letter is required reading in public schools, especially during his annual holiday.
In truth, they may be totally unaware of that section of King’s letter. I review the letter twice a year in two different courses at Grove City College. As students will attest, when I Google the letter on the classroom overhead screen, it often appears with an ellipsis in place of the natural law sections. They’re removed.
A typical example of this sin of omission is a King piece posted at CNN.com. Titled, “Three ways MLK speaks to our time,” the article praised King as a socialist environmentalist. Notably not mentioned was the Reverend King’s invocation of natural law, freedom of conscience, and just laws. Liberals at CNN.com don’t want that King, because liberals want to use the state to force religious believers to genuflect at the altar of the Left’s cultural revolution.
That’s the MLK that liberals choose to ignore. That’s an MLK to censor. And for many liberals, including those who hate on Kim Davis, that’s a King to hate.