The best thinking about Kim Davis

Mark Tooley, the President of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, provides what seems to me to be the most balanced assessment of how we should think about Kim Davis–the courageous county clerk who was jailed for refusing to violate her conscience.  Here are some of his thoughts:

1. These issues of faith and statecraft are not new to American politics.  Martin Luther King, Jr., argued from jail in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that laws that violate natural law (God’s eternal law written on the heart) are no laws at all.  He urged non-compliance with laws of segregation, and went to jail for breaking such laws.  He was eventually assassinated for this conviction.

2.  William Seward worked against slavery not through civil disobedience but through political change.  His work culminated in the 14th Amendment.  He was nearly slashed to death in an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.

3. There is no statute that Kim Davis is violating.  Kentucky’s legislature never authorized same-sex marriage.  Nor did the U.S. Congress.  The “law” is a ruling from the Gnostic mystic Justice Anthony Kennedy, who discovered in the 14th Amendment, crafted to protect legal equality for freed slaves, a state-imposed “dignity” for same-sex arrangements outside natural marriage.

4. Of course tradition grants deference to Supreme Court rulings until they are overturned by other Court rulings or acts of the legislature.  Yet this does not prevent other branches of government from ignoring or condemning what they consider to be unconstitutional Court decisions.  Lincoln called the Dred Scott decision, which denied citizenship to blacks, unconstitutional.

5. Some Christians call on government officials like Kim Davis to resign.  Others such as Ryan Anderson call on the Kentucky legislature to do what the North Carolina legislature has done–issue conscience exemptions for those in government who cannot comply.

6. Globally there are countless complications for Christians who serve in government or live in a democratic state.  Christians served in Caesar’s court even as that government persecuted Christians.  Should Christians in China work for the regime that periodically torments Christians?  Should American Christians of past times have worked for segregationist governments?  Should they work for state governments that subsidize abortions?  There are no quick answers found in brief Bible quotes.

7. Is federal endorsement of same-sex marriage worse than federally-endorsed racial segregation or slavery?  Is this a more egregious violation of natural law?  Few would think so.

If it is not worse, does that mean we can shrug our shoulders and say Kim David went too far?  That she should have simply resigned and let others sign those marriage certificates?  (She said that even in that case her name would remain by law on those certificates, and those couples could go to other counties and get married.)  Are we embarrassed by her?  Fearful that liberals will think we are fundamentalist and unreasonable if we cheer on her courage?

I think Kim Davis is the tipping point.  Not that our nation is irredeemably lost.  For public opinion seems to favor the view that the government went too far by putting her in jail.

But Davis shows us what is coming down the road.  That people of conscience (and that includes unbelievers who sense–rightly–that government should not force anyone to violate their conscience on such critical issues as marriage) will be subject to state coercion in the future.  In other words, it has now gone beyond those bakers and florists, who have lost their businesses and suffered the sullying of their reputations.  If we don’t register our protest now, for the sake of others whose paths we might not have chosen for ourselves, one day we too will suffer such coercion and opprobium.  And we will wonder why more do not support us.

This is time to remember the words of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) who protested Nazism and wound up in a concentration camp:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.