Kentucky Clerk is No More Lawless than Supreme Court

Kentucky Clerk is No More Lawless than Supreme Court September 3, 2015

As a former Kentuckian, I’ve been watching this case with great interest. One woman — in Eastern Kentucky — has drawn a line in the sand and said, “no more.”

The genius of the American idea, in part, was that a nation could be ruled by laws – not men.  That way, we can better protect our freedoms and guard against tyranny.

Is this Kentucky woman hurting or supporting our nation by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples?

THREE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULDN’T CALL KIM DAVIS A HYPOCRITE

My husband, Constitutional attorney David French, offers a more accurate reading of the situation: the Courts and the Obama administration doing whatever they like, and invoking the “rule of law” whenever it is convenient. The Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, is lawless, but not as lawless as the Supreme Court. He writes at National Review Online:

As of this writing, the lead stories at both the Washington Post and New York Times are the same — in tiny Rowan County, Kentucky, Kim Davis, the elected county clerk, is defying the Supreme Court of the United States. Citing “God’s authority,” she is refusing to issue any marriage licenses out of her office, referring couples to neighboring counties. Her reason is simple: Ever since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, she’ll be required to issue licenses to same-sex couples, and signing her name on the marriage certificate would be a “searing act of validation” that would “forever echo in her conscience.”

Make no mistake, this is a revolutionary act. She has been rebuffed by the courts at every turn. She has exhausted her legal options. And the Supreme Court unmistakably has jurisdiction over her case. Her actions are now lawless, and she’s facing a motion for contempt of court, a potential criminal case for official misconduct, impeachment, and — of course — possible rejection at the ballot box. Revolution has its consequences, and Davis will endure those consequences soon enough.

But Davis isn’t the only revolutionary here. In fact, she didn’t fire the first revolutionary shot. That distinction belongs to a Supreme Court that concocted out of whole cloth a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, using legal “reasoning” that reads more like a religious tract than a court opinion. Justice Kennedy took the moral sensibilities of five justices and rendered those moral sensibilities the law of the land. 

It’s not the first time the Supreme Court has stepped into the most consequential of legal questions, removed them from the Democratic process, and did so by essentially making it all up. The Court’s horrific Dred Scott opinion helped spark the Civil War. Roe v. Wade legalized mass murder. And the instant after each judicial coup, its defenders solemnly invoke the “rule of law” to force the masses to comply. Yet the rule of law requires both lawful enactment and lawful enforcement.

He goes on to say:

… I have deep respect for the rule of law, for our Constitution, and for our federalist democratic traditions. And that’s exactly why I have no respect for Roe, for Obergefell, or for any assertion that enforcing those revolutionary acts represents American constitutional government in action. Kim Davis committed a lawless act. But so did Justice Kennedy. His superior power and influence does not change that salient fact. The American people are indeed “ruled,” but increasingly it is by men, not law.

Read the rest of the article here!

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