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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Four Reasons Kim Davis is Not Wrong


If I had a penny every time I heard a Christian say about Kim Davis' situation something to the effect of:
"When we make laws, we will expect them to be followed. Supporting those who break the law is setting up a spiral in which breaking the law becomes accepted. Then the law has no force and is not good for anything. We can make all the laws we want if half the people refuse to follow them at any given time and it will not do any good. Laws become meaningless."
This is half correct and all wrong at the same time.
The only standard of right and wrong is the scripture. Romans 13:1 is quite clear that the only authority which civil magistrates (e.g. county clerks, senators, governors, judges, and presidents) have is what God has given them. Where God has not given them authority, they have no authority. When they speak without authority to do so, no one is obliged to hear or obey them. Romans 13 gives no exceptions.
(John 19:9-11 - And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.
No Kim Davis cannot make her own law. But neither can the governor or the AG can make law. Only the legislature can enact laws. Until the legislature changes the law, she is duty bound to obey the law. SCOTUS can not make federal law and they most definitely cannot make state law. They can only apply the law to cases that properly come before them. Their rulings, such as their Obergafell decision, only apply to the specific parties in a case. Even if they rule that a person is innocent of breaking the law because the body making the law did not have constitutional authority to make that particular law, that doesn't change the law.
So what about the arguments in the linked article?
    LOGIC–Imagine you worked at a restaurant, and you believed that God thought drinking alcohol was a sin.
This is not analogous. She is not an employee working for a business or boss. She is an elected official responsible to carry out the statutory duties of her office in accordance with the law. She took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of Kentucky, and all the laws created in accordance with it. Those laws forbid her from issuing marriage licenses to same gender couples. Secondly, even if the KY constitution is changed and the legislature changes the law to require clerks to grant marriage licenses to people of the same sex, ALL clerks are still duty bound to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). No government can impose a duty which God has forbidden. No government can impose a duty to obey a law which they have no authority to make. While a godly civil servant may resign when ordered to break the law of God, they are not obligated to do so.
Daniel is an example of a civil magistrate who refused to obey the law of the land and refused to resign his office as second in command next to the king. He also refused to privatize his obedience of God and disobedience of the king's decree, praying by an open window in full view of people. God honored Daniel for his disobedience of the pagan king's civil command and his example of obedience to God has been honored by the Christian church ever since. Kim Davis' case in terms of facts and law is even stronger than Daniel's situation. Daniel disobeyed the clear law of the land - a law which the King had no authority to make and which imposed no moral obligation of obedience on Daniel. Kim Davis has broken no laws - she has only defied the order of a judge commanding her to break state law. Since she was not a party to any SCOTUS case, she is therefore not legally bound to comply with the SCOTUS opinion.
    HYPOCRISY–Refusing to issue a marriage license to a couple because you believe the Bible condemns their union is a difficult position for a County Clerk to take without turning into a giant hypocrite. The Bible actually says nothing whatsoever about same-sex marriage. It does say quite a bit about the issue of divorce.
Actually the Bible has a lot to say about marriage. God made mankind male and female and instituted marriage with one man and one woman. He commands married people to engage in regular sexual intercourse ( 1 Cor 7) but he condemns men laying with men and women laying with women. The Bible does allow some divorced people to remarry so it is not wrong for her to issue marriage licenses to divorced people.
    CONFUSION–Kim Davis and her supporters are arguing that forcing her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples amounts to “Religious Persecution.”
I disagree somewhat with Kim Davis' position here, but forcing her to break God's law and Kentucky state law and Constitution is certainly persecution. People that attempt to force others to break the law are called tyrants and their actions, tyranny.
    INTEGRITY–Staying on in a position for which you are refusing to perform the duties you were hired to perform–all while continuing to take a salary–is far from a “Christian” thing to do.
This is generally true, but doesn't apply to Kim Davis. She is doing the duties she took an oath to perform according to the laws she swore to uphold. It is the federal judge ordering her to do something unlawful who has the integrity problem. Remember Daniel's example we alluded to earlier?
I appreciate Kim Davis' stand but regret the grandstanding of some people associating themselves with her and leveraging her plight to promote themselves.

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