Just had a penitentiary flashback....
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RLENT
Veteran Expediter
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
Hence the wild and crazy use of the term "predicated" which directly connects belief and action.
The stated premise implied that those demands would be the kind that deny others their rights, as Davis is doing. And that's the litmus test, for most people: your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
How is the Supreme's decision 'legislation'?
You aren't the one refusing to obey a judge, or follow an oath of office. The one who is [and her supporters] cites the Bible.
The question of "how long" anticipates the many conveniently timed conversions that are bound to arise if 'deeply held beliefs' are permitted to overrule the law. So how can anyone prove who is really exaggerating their shallow beliefs, or just making them up entirely? When the result is exemption from the law, it's kind of important to be sure the premise is genuine - only we can't.
I'm really, really sorry if that's what you meant the premise to imply, but nevertheless the premise was stated unambiguously as "in order to prove wrong the notions that Christianity is first among equal religions." Nothing in there even hints at the demands infringing on the rights of others. It doesn't imply it, nor can anyone logically infer it. But if you want to stick with that, then you must also consider the law granting same-sex marriage may well indeed be a swing that lands squarely on the nose of others when that law demands they be a participant.
Deeply held, shallow, doesn't really matter if someone wants to use that as a reason for not wanting to do something. You could question her on the sincerity of her beliefs, I suppose, but the burden of proof is still going to be on the questioner. Let's say a regular, run o' the mill heterosexual couple is in the midst of a sexual encounter when, suddenly, she yells out, "No! Stop!" because she has the deeply, or shallow, belief that she no longer wants to have sex with this guy. Just how much time needs to pass before he should believe her and honor her request? What if she set the entire thing up just to be mean, should he dismiss her demands as disingenuous? How long and how deeply someone holds a belied is a moot point.
The thing is, Davis' objection is not to issuing same-sex marriage licenses as such. Rather, she objects to issuing such licenses with her name on them, because she believes (rightly or wrongly) that having her name on them is an endorsement of same-sex marriage. Indeed, as she stated in her stay application, she says that she would be content with "Modifying the prescribed Kentucky marriage license form to remove the multiple references to Davis’ name, and thus to remove the personal nature of the authorization that Davis must provide on the current form."
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
Be that as it may, the fact remains that but for her actual actions there would have been no legal issue, no failure in performance to uphold the duties of her office and comply with the law.
She could believe as she does from now to the end of time ... and she would have suffered no legal consequence ... had she not chose to act in what amounts to an unlawful manner ...
It's the conduct - not the belief - that got her into hot water ... and is what she was actually jailed for.
Now if only the bible thumpers could understand such a simple concept.
Pedant.
Absent the belief, her action would not have occurred. She's made it quite clear the reasons for her action, which is why her action and belief are so directly connected. To separate out one from the other and dismiss either as irrelevant is both wrong and unfair.
You seem to have a more concrete confidence in the law and those who interpret it than I do. She's actually got a very good case under Kentucky's RFRA law, which provides religious objectors with exemptions even from such generally applicable laws, so long as the exemptions don’t necessarily and materially undermine a compelling government interest, which her request does not (she's simply requesting the State remove her name from the marriage licenses, not that she be able to refuse to hand them out).
Again, pedantic. There is nothing wrong or inaccurate in saying she was jailed for her beliefs, because she was, as without those beliefs none of this would have happened.
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Beliefs and principles are a tricky thing. People are quick to condemn those for acting on their principles, as long as they don't agree with those principles. What about the truck driver who doesn't believe in using pharmaceuticals? Should he be forced to haul a load of drugs, forced to violate his own principles and beliefs? Or should the carrier make a reasonable accommodation for him?
No, the carrier should not, and for the same reason the government should not accommodate the beliefs of any one person: the number of 'beliefs' [and the ways it infringes upon the person's conscience, according solely to that person] could easily grow to an infinite number - and that's just considering the legitimate number of religions with various beliefs.
The government could end up spending more time and money trying to accommodate various beliefs than on the actual job required.
The original 'conscientious objection' to killing is where it all began, and that wasn't a problem, the solution was easy: serve in a non fighting capacity, which the military also needs people to do. Expanding it to cover other 'beliefs' especially those related to religious teaching] is a can of snakes that will bite.
I have written about my belief that faith based 'pregnancy crisis centers' are deceptive and unethical, but if I were hauling something that benefited one [or more] of them, it would be the same as any other load, because that is my job: not to pass judgement, or express my personal opinion, just to deliver the freight. If Davis can't or won't do her job, she shouldn't have it, IMO.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the religious accommodation provisions were enacted in the 1972 amendments) disagrees with you, wholeheartedly.
If that were the case, then the accommodation would be an "undue hardship" on the employer, which the law specifically guards against. Title VII applies to both public and private employers and states they have a duty to exempt religious employees from generally applicable work rules, so long as this won’t create an “undue hardship,” which means more than a modest cost, on the employer. All accommodations incur some type of cost, but if the employee can be accommodated in a way that would let the job still get done without any undue burden on the employer, the coworkers, or the customers, then the employer must accommodate them.
Well, it began long before the conscientious objection of the Vietnam War. It goes back at least to when the Constitution was written, and not just the First Amendment, more more specifically the Fourteenth Amendment which guarantees equal protection under the laws and to public accommodation because of their exercise of their right to religious freedom. It could even be argued that it goes back 1565 to the French Protestant colony at Ft. Caroline when they clashed with Catholics from Spain and the freedom to be Protestant in this new land meant certain death, no exceptions, literally. Be that as it may, expanding things to include other 'beliefs' real or imagined is a can of worms that has been officially and legally open since 1964 and it hasn't bitten very many very badly. The law accepts the possibility of insincere religious objections (which you clearly do not) since most people do not share the same objections and the request can easily be accommodated, and the law accepts the fact that there are occasions when an accommodation is made that others may suddenly see the light and have the same request (such as throngs of prisoners who are not Jewish suddenly become not merely Jewish, but kosherly Jewish when one prisoner gets a kosher special meal that's a lot tastier than baloney and cheese on stale bread).
You're obviously one of the many people who have no problem in setting aside your beliefs or principles for the job, which makes it even all the more easy to accommodate those who cannot do the same.
The only accommodation Davis is asking for is for her name not to appear on the marriage certificates, and thus be placed into the permanent historical record of Kentucky that she condones or accepts same-sex marriage. It's an accommodation that can easily be made by the state, and would cost them virtually nothing, since they're the ones who design and print the certificates in the first place. It's a simple matter to produce blank marriage certificates which do not have a place for the County Clerk's name and signature. It would simply state the County Clerk's Office of the county, and have a place for a representative of the Clerk's Office to sign it. Easy peasy. Forcing her name to be on the certificate does not in any way further or promote a compelling State interest.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that if public servants refuse to serve the public they should be removed from their positions for ignoring laws or shirking their duties regardless of their reasons. Problem is, the article quoted below points out that this seems to happen all the time but nobody goes to jail except Kim Davis. Apparently, it all depends on the issue.
More than that it depends on where you are in the legal process. Davis wasn't immediately sent to jail the first time she refused to hand out marriage licenses, just like DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier wasn't thrown in jail immediately upon her first refusal to issue gun permits. Whoever penned that article (Rachel Alexander) is a moron.
The Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage on June 26th. On June 29th Kim Davis declared she would not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, or anyone else, for that matter. She was not thrown in jail. On On July 2 Davis and the county were sued by the ACLU on behalf of 4 couples who were denied licenses. She was still not thrown in jail. On July 8th several of the County Clerks in Kentucky asked for a special session of the KY General Assembly for them to consider a bill to accommodate those who say they can't issue licenses to same-sex couples for religious reason. The governor declines to call the special session citing cost concerns. Davis is still not in jail. On August 12th Judge Bunning rules that Davis must issue licenses to same-sex couples. Davis filed an appeal. Still not in jail, though, and still not issuing the licenses. On August 27th the US District Court of Appeals declines to hear the case, affirming Bunning's ruling. She appealed the appeal, while still refusing to issue licenses, and on September 1 the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. On Sept 2 she continued to refuse to hand out marriage certificates and was summoned to Bunning's courtroom om Sept 3rd, where she told the judge she would not give marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the court's order for her to do so. THAT's when she was thrown in jail.
Cathy Lanier started handing out gun permits without requiring a "good enough" reason the same day the judge ordered her to. If Lanier had continued to refuse to issue gun permits despite the judge's order and after she had exhausted all of her appeals, she would have eventually found herself in jail, just like Kim Davis did.
The lesbian judge who refused to marry couples unless or until same-sex couples could marry? From the article: "In 2012, a lesbian judge in Texas said she would not issue marriage licenses to heterosexual couples until same-sex marriage was legalized. She wasn’t put in jail for violating the law, nor does it appear she was even disciplined at all."
Well, no, Einsteinette (Rachel Alexander), she wasn't put in jail for violating the law, because she didn't violate the law. Sheesh. Judges aren't required by law to perform marriage ceremonies, they merely have the authority to do so. So do licensed or ordained Christian ministers, priests, Jewish rabbis, officers authorized by religious organizations, and retired judges who don't even judge anymore. None of these people are required by law to perform a marriage ceremony any more than a notary public is required to notarize anything and everything put before them.
You people are driving me crazy posting half-assed crap journalism from Townhall. I mean it.
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
RLENT
Veteran Expediter
Yup - but she's still under Federal Court order not to prohibit or otherwise interfere with the employees of her office issuing marriage licenses.
If she violates that order, she will likely wind up back in the pokey ...
So it would appear ...
RLENT
Veteran Expediter