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Religious Liberty: Some Unsolicited Career Advice for Kim Davis

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One of the jobs of the County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky is to issue marriage licenses to couples who meet the legal standards for such licenses. Recently, those standards changed, and now same-sex couples can license their marriages.

That new standard conflicts with Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’s religious belief that marriage is only valid between one man and one woman. No problem. There’s a simple way to handle that situation. If she isn’t willing to do the job, she should quit the job.

Instead, Davis asserts that her religious belief entitles her to continue holding the title, and continue collecting her $80,000 annual salary from Rowan County’s taxpayers, without doing the job.

She stopped issuing (and allowing her deputy clerks to issue) marriage licenses two months ago after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Not just to same-sex couples, but to everyone.

As of this writing, she continues to refuse to issue marriage licenses even after multiple courts have ordered her to do so and after the US Supreme Court has denied her appeals of those orders.

In a statement issued through Liberty Counsel, the Christian organization representing her in those appeals, Davis states that “some people have said I should resign, but I have done my job well. … It is a matter of religious liberty …. I intend to continue to serve the people of Rowan County, but I cannot violate my conscience.”

Not doing one’s job at all is not doing it “well.” Refusing to serve the people of Rowan County is not “serving the people of Rowan County.”

Religious liberty is an important thing. Important enough, I think, that we shouldn’t willfully twist its meaning.

No, religious liberty does not entitle Kim Davis to a continuing government position with a very nice paycheck for declining to do the job she was elected to do and promised to do.

Kim Davis is not a martyr for religious freedom. She’s a layabout, a no-show, collecting a paycheck for work she refuses to do. Martyrs make decisions on principle and accept the consequences of those decisions.

If the requirements of the job have become, as Davis calls them, a “Heaven or Hell decision,” then she should make that decision and act accordingly. She should resign her position as Rowan County clerk and go seek other employment —  employment which doesn’t conflict with her religious beliefs.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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People as Packages, Tied Up With String: This is Chris Christie’s Favorite Thing

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English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration ...
English: ICE Special Agents (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arresting suspects during a raid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New Jersey governor Chris Christie deserves huge honesty points for his vision of a new 21st century America. Donald Trump’s paeans to Mussolini-style fascism reside in vague appeals to “national greatness” and his own “leadership.” Christie comes right out and shows us the dark policy specifics of his desire to turn the United States into a technologically advanced  version of Erich Honecker’s East Germany.

His latest: Tracking people “like FedEx packages.”

Granted, he limits the proposal to foreigners entering the US on visas, for purposes of preventing illegal visa overstays. And he’s light on details. An RFID chip in the physical visa or passport, maybe? But what if the foreigner leaves that document in a drawer? How to track him then? Maybe implant the chip beneath the skin on entry and pull it out on exit? Who knows?

The technical details that aren’t that important, although they do sound pretty creepy. The threat is embedded in the idea itself.

As someone — not Thomas Jefferson, although it’s often attributed to him — once said, “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

A government big enough to track every foreigner from entry to exit is a government big enough to track YOU — your location and your activities — from cradle to grave.

A government big enough to track you from cradle to grave is a government big enough to CONTROL you from cradle to grave.

Anyone who proposes such a scheme is crazy, evil, or both … and should never, ever be allowed anywhere near the levers of political power.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the “major party” presidential candidates, and lots of lower-level politicians and bureaucrats, are on board with schemes like this, in one form or another.

“Real ID” to put everyone’s n right to travel under federal government control . “Background checks” to control and monitor gun ownership. “Voter ID” scams to manipulate the electoral impact of minority populations. “E-Verify,” which conscripts employers into unpaid agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement gang. You name it, it’s either done or some prominent politician is talking it up. Christie just happens to be the most vocal and honest representative of that line of thinking.

If you’re reading this, chances are pretty good that you plan to vote in next year’s presidential election. And if you’re going to do that, why not draw some red lines, come up with some litmus tests, instead of just resigning yourself to the usual futile attempt to discern the lesser evil? Any promise other than to roll back the surveillance state should be an instant disqualifier for the presidency.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Politics as Usual: Hillary Clinton “Takes Responsibility”

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Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH
Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In politics, words tend to take on double meanings — one for politicians, another for the rest of us. Nowhere is this more true than with respect to the word “responsibility.”

The latest example: Hillary Clinton’s latest statement on her illegal use of a private email server for US State Department business when she headed that department. “I take responsibility for that decision,” Clinton says, betwixt and between claims that she didn’t break the law, that if she did break the law it’s no big deal, and that it really was just a matter of not making “the best choice.”

Here’s how “responsibility” works:

If you or I “take responsibility” for a purchase, we pay the bill or bad things happen. Maybe we get sued. At the very least, our credit ratings take a hit.

If you or I “take responsibility” for a crime, we go to court, plead guilty, and get sentenced by a judge.

When a politician “takes responsibility” for something, he or she is saying something very different: “OK, I ‘took responsibility’ — now let’s move along,  forget all about it, and never, ever, ever suggest that I should face any actual consequences for my actions.”

For example, in 1993 US Attorney General Janet Reno and US President Bill Clinton took turns “taking responsibility” for the FBI’s massacre of 76 men, women and children at a church facility outside of Waco, Texas.

Neither Reno nor Clinton resigned from office in disgrace. In fact, Clinton finished his term and was re-elected, while Reno went on to become the second longest-serving Attorney General in US history.

Neither Reno nor Clinton faced criminal charges or impeachment over the affair. Clinton was later impeached for lying about an affair with an intern. But arson resulting in 76 deaths? Hey, no big deal. They “took responsibility,” right?

So here, 22 years later, comes that other Clinton. She wants to become — in fact, she she considers herself entitled to become — President of the United States. Pursuant to which she has graciously, if belatedly, agreed to mouth the words “I take responsibility,” as part of a script in which your role and mine is to reward that statement by shutting up and getting out of her way.

Well, maybe. Then again, maybe the rest of us bit part actors will flub our lines in USA Network’s presentation of “The Hillary Clinton Story.”

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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