Ken Berwitz
President Obama\’s effort to stack the audience with thosewho support his causes at his last State of the Union Address is being rebuffedby conservatives inviting guests that challenged Obamacare and gay marriage.
The Family Research Council told Secrets late Monday thatthey arranged for Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to approve marriage certificates for gay couples,to sit in the House audience. They also got a seat for her attorney MatStaver.
Obama has invited Cincinnati\’s Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff inthe court case that led the Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage.
Davis, the Rowan County clerk, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sexcouples because it conflicted with her Christian beliefs. She spent five nightsin jail. Her cased helped to push religious liberty into the presidentialcontest.
If Republicans do anything but ignore kim davis they are devoid of common sense.
As any regular reader of this blog knows, I support gay marriage 100%. I consider it a simple issue of freedom. If you don\’t like gay marriage, if you think it is against the word of God, if you just think it is disgusting….that\’s fine. No one is demanding that you marry someone of your sex. That, however, does not give you the right to force others to live by your beliefs. Think about how loud you would be screaming about freedom if the situation were reversed.
But my, or anyone else\’s, position on same-sex marriage is not the issue here.
Once the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same-sex marriage was legal, kim davis\’s responsibility as county clerk of Harland County, Kentucky was to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
If davis felt it was against her religious beliefs to do so – so much so that she could not perform her duties – she could have, and should have, resigned.
But she did not resign. Instead she decided to put her personal beliefs above the law. For which she was put in jail…and deservedly so.
That is davis\’s one and only claim to fame.
It is not that she is against same-sex marriage. Lots of people are and they are entitled to their beliefs.
It is not that she would not issue a same-sex marriage license. Lots of people would not do so and they are entitled to their beliefs.
No, kim davis\’s sole claim to fame is that she stayed in a job where she was responsible, by law, for issuing those licenses, and ignored the law by refusing to do so.
Republicans with brains will, therefore, ignore her when she shows up at President Obama\’s State Of The Union speech.
Those who don\’t – those who, in effect, sanction idea that people can pick and choose the laws they like – have no common sense. No common sense at all.
