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The Gift of Religious Freedom

While the legal case will continue to work its way through the courts, the bottom line is this: Kim Davis has won. The homofascists have lost.

Last Tuesday, Kentucky’s new governor, Matt Bevin, issued an executive order that eliminates the names of all county clerks from marriage licenses and protects the unalienable constitutional rights and religious freedoms of Kim Davis and all other clerks in Kentucky.

“This action is a fulfillment of a campaign promise by Gov. Bevin and is directly what our client Kim Davis has been requesting for months,” said Mat Staver, Davis’ attorney and founder of the Christian civil rights firm Liberty Counsel. “This promise will enable her and other clerks to do their jobs without compromising religious values and beliefs.”

The governor’s statement reads in part:

“To ensure that the sincerely held religious beliefs of all Kentuckians are honored, Executive Order 2015-048 directs the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives to issue a revised marriage license form to the offices of all Kentucky County Clerks. The name of the County Clerk is no longer required to appear on the form.”

While the First Amendment alone should be enough to ensure these safeguards, the unconstitutional actions of five “progressive” lawyers on the U.S. Supreme Court, who, back in June, presumed to capriciously redefine the immutable meaning of marriage, has created legal and moral chaos from coast-to-coast, making fixes such as that issued by Gov. Bevin necessary. Furthermore, these extremist lawyers’ subjective and unprecedented opinion will require additional fixes in all other states to reaffirm Christians’ objective and constitutionally guaranteed rights. Although the fight to repair the perversion of marriage committed by the high court will continue, this is an important step in the right direction.

You may recall that Davis was arbitrarily imprisoned for five days earlier this year by federal Judge David Bunning for exercising her religious liberties and refusing to violate her conscience by signing her name to, and, thereby, giving her official approval of, counterfeit “gay marriage” licenses. These licenses, of course, violate both natural law and the manifold biblical proscriptions against the sin of unnatural same-sex deviancy. Bunning’s tyrannical move backfired tremendously, earning Davis’ the support of tens-of-millions of Christians worldwide, as well as both a private audience with, and the express support of, Pope Francis.

“This is a wonderful Christmas gift for Kim Davis,” continued Staver. “This executive order is a clear, simple accommodation on behalf of Kim Davis and all Kentucky clerks. Kim can celebrate Christmas with her family knowing she does not have to choose between her public office and her deeply held religious convictions. What former Gov. Beshear could have done but refused to do, Gov. Bevin did with this executive order. We are pleased that Gov. Bevin kept his campaign promise to accommodate the religious rights of Kim Davis. We will notify the courts of the executive order, and this order proves our point that a reasonable accommodation should have been done to avoid Kim having to spend time in jail.”

“Bah humbug!” cried the ACLU.

“Governor Bevin’s executive action has added to the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over marriage licensing in Kentucky,” claimed ACLU of Kentucky Legal Director William Sharp.

“The requirement that the county clerk’s name appear on marriage licenses is prescribed by Kentucky law and is not subject to unilateral change by the governor,” he demanded, proving that the anti-Christian left’s goal was never about so-called “marriage equality” but, rather, was to force Christians to deny marriage reality and personally affirm, under penalty of law, mock “gay marriages.”

The ACLU will soon have little more to say on the subject as lawmakers are poised to further codify and build upon Bevin’s executive order. “Next month, the Kentucky legislature is expected to update the state’s marriage laws and will consider a provision exempting county clerks from having to issue them,” reports ABC News. “Davis said Kentucky’s marriage laws have been ‘completely eviscerated’ by the Supreme Court’s ruling and said she would be willing to come to the state Capitol to testify about any changes.”

Other state legislatures, as well as the U.S. Congress, must soon follow suit if any progress is to be made into the impasse between secularist change agents hostile to religious freedom, and the faithful Christians who enjoy it as a matter of law.

“In an interview with the Associated Press about her year at the center of one of the biggest social changes in decades, Davis described it as ‘a very emotional and a very real situation to all people.’ But she said simply telling others about her faith was not ‘going to make anybody believe anything.’ And so she put her faith in action by refusing to issue the licenses,” added ABC.

“‘No one would ever have remembered a county clerk that just said … ‘Even though I don’t agree with it, it’s OK. I’ll do it,’ Davis said. ‘If I could be remembered for one thing, it’s that I was not afraid to not compromise myself.’”

Kim Davis will certainly be remembered for her steadfast refusal to compromise herself. But she, along with Gov. Bevin, will also be remembered for helping, this Christmas season, to re-establish the gift of religious freedom for the people of Kentucky.

Even so, the war for our culture will continue into the New Year and well beyond.


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Reflections on the Kim Davis Situation

Written by Harry Torres

Recently, someone asked for my thoughts on Kim Davis (in fact, at a baseball game I recently attended) and I really haven’t given it much thought – until now. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”

He was partly right. Liberty of conscience is indeed sacred. There is, however, a higher court before which Mr. Gandhi – before which we all – will ultimately stand. It is Kim Davis’ inevitable turn in the dock at this Supreme of all supreme courts that drives her steadfast refusal to mock God through mock “marriage.”

Let’s set aside for a moment all the legal and political wrangling over religious freedom. What is it about Kentucky’s Kim Davis that really has secularists, even some misguided and ill-informed church-goers, yanking their hair out in clumps?

While it may feel personal to them, it’s not. The “throw-Kim-Davis-in-jail!” crowd doesn’t hate this humble, non-assuming Democratic Christian wife and mother of four so much for who she is (though many elitists insist upon sophomorically deriding her as some kind of intolerant, backwoods hick); they hate her more for what she represents – for Whom she represents – and, most especially, because, while making her stand, she has been, to date, immovable.

After nearly a week in jail, Kim didn’t budge. Neither will she resign. Neither should she resign. If she did resign, you see, the precedent would be set. They want the precedent set.

And that’s what’s got them steaming.

If Kim Davis steps down from her elected position as Rowan County clerk, it would represent exile through attrition for her and her fellow believers. Christ follower? Seeking elected office? Looking for a government job? Forget it. Christians need not apply. All the same, if you do apply, be sure to keep your mouth shut, your Bible closed and your First Amendment at home.

To Kim Davis and her supporters, this courageous stand represents unwavering faithfulness to the ultimate Law Giver. To her detractors, it represents stubborn indifference to the laws of man. (The law, incidentally, remains unchanged and on the books as codified. Sections 402.005 and 402.020 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes have yet to be amended by the legislature and, even now, restrict marriage to “the civil status, condition, or relation of one (1) man and one (1) woman”).

Whatever your perspective, Kim’s stand is bold. It is that boldness that has at once encouraged biblical Christians and terrified secular-”progressives.” These things have a way of catching on, you see. This is how movements are born.

Before she was arrested, shackled and imprisoned by U.S. Marshals for her “crime” of conscience, Brian Beutler, senior editor of the New Republic, was among the torch-waving leftists demanding the government “throw Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in jail.”

“Any attempt to force her hand risks making her a bigger martyr on the religious right than she already is,” he wrote, “but that risk is small compared to the risk that allowing her to continue abusing her power without consequence will create a terrible precedent.”

And so she was thrown in jail.

It backfired magnificently. So much so, in fact, that Judge David Bunning suddenly and inexplicably walked back his contempt order and released her with no indication by Kim or her legal team that she intends to change her position one iota.

They aimed to make an example of her. Instead, they made martyr of her. And she set the example for others to follow. So, if jail won’t do it – if being thrown in jail won’t compel this brave woman to disobey God and violate her conscience, then what will?

Who knows how far we will regress as a Nation – They’ll have to burn her at the stake.

Time to ask yourself – Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell? And what are you doing to prepare?


Harry R. Torres served in the United States Navy for 22 years and retired in 2006.  Mr. Torres has over 25 years of security management experience.  His hobbies include golf, hunting & fishing, baseball, rugby, classic cars, travel, music, entertaining and cooking.

 




Anti-Christian Bigotry on the Bench and in the Media

The federal judge who threw Christian clerk Kim Davis in jail previously “oversaw a legal settlement that included anti-harassment sessions” for students in Boyd County, Kentucky, The New York Times reports. In fact, the judge, David Bunning, had denied free speech rights to those students.

The so-called “anti-harassment sessions” in the Boyd County case were actually designed to instruct students “to withhold Christian viewpoints about homosexual behavior,” the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the legal group representing the students, reported.

Bunning’s ruling against the students, a direct ban on free speech, was overturned on appeal.

The Times admitted this fact only later in the story, noting that Bunning’s ruling forcing students into the “anti-harassment sessions” was “overruled by an appellate court.”

The fact that he “was overruled by an appellate case” demonstrates how wrong his ruling was.

It is this out-of-control judge who is at the center of the Kim Davis case. Ironically, the media are reporting that Bunning is a Christian. If so, he has no fundamental understanding of how Christians helped create this nation, and are entitled to the rights and liberties guaranteed to them under the Constitution.

The Times’ handling of this case reflects how the actions of Davis have also been distorted by most of the media. The Times said Bunning sent Davis to jail for “refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.” In fact, she had simply exercised her religious rights and liberties in refusing to sign the gay marriage licenses.

Her attorneys at Liberty Counsel noted, “Davis only asked that the Kentucky marriage license forms be changed so her name would not appear on them.” This simple request was deemed to be “contempt” and she was thrown in jail.

What we see in the case of Judge Bunning, under pressure from the gay lobby, is a pattern of discrimination against Christians, a pattern we also see in the coverage of the cases in which he has ruled. The media have refused to respect the rights of free speech and freedom of religion that Americans are supposed to have under the Constitution.

A rally in support of county clerk Kim Davis has been announced for Tuesday, September 8, at the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky at 3:00 p.m. The address is 13 Crossbar Road, Grayson, Kentucky.

Heather Clark of the Christian News Network first noted that Bunning, appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, had, in the Boyd County case, “ordered Kentucky students to be re-educated about homosexuality despite their objections.”

In the case, she noted, a number of students objected to being forced to watch a video that asserted that it is wrong to oppose homosexuality and that a person’s sexuality cannot be changed. Clark reported, “They discovered that they could not opt-out of the training without being penalized, and contacted the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) for assistance.”

That began the process of filing suit, and eventually the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bunning’s ruling in October 2007.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has sided with Davis, saying she not only has the right to object on religious grounds to signing gay marriage licenses, but that the Supreme Court did not in any sense make gay marriage the “law of the land.”

Numerous experts have pointed out that, under the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court cannot make law. The U.S. Supreme Court’s “power to offer opinion does not equal the power to make law,” notes the Tenth Amendment Center. Generally speaking, experts say, the Supreme Court can overturn laws and executive actions but it cannot enforce its rulings. The power to make law is given to the representatives of the people in the national and state legislatures.

Huckabee says Davis, a county official elected as a Democrat, should be immediately released from federal custody. “Exercising religious liberty should never be a crime in America,” he says. “This is a direct attack on our God-given, constitutional rights.”

Huckabee said, “Kim is asking the perfect question: ‘Under what law am I authorized to issue homosexual couples a marriage license?’ The Supreme Court cannot and did not make a law. They only made a ruling on a law. Congress makes the laws. Because Congress has made no law allowing for same sex marriage, Kim does not have the Constitutional authority to issue a marriage license to homosexual couples.”

Kentucky passed Amendment 1 in 2004, prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriages. It passed by a 75-25 percent margin.

Another Republican presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, called the order issued by Bunning to use federal marshals to arrest and jail Davis “judicial lawlessness [which] crossed into judicial tyranny.” He explained that “the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.”

He added, “I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.”

Cruz went on, “In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage opinion has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s opinion was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it.”

Indeed, as AIM reported, Scalia had called the Supreme Court decision in the same-sex marriage case a judicial “Putsch,” an attempt to overthrow our form of government. Scalia said the court was a “threat to American democracy.”

In the face of this emerging judicial dictatorship, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis exercised her religious rights and liberties, only to be sent to prison.

Her attorney, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, reports, “Despite being held as a prisoner for her religious beliefs, her conscience remains unshackled. Liberty Counsel will challenge Judge Bunning’s contempt order and her unlawful confinement. Kim is resolute in her decision to challenge the issuance of any marriage certificate bearing her name without her authority.”

As the coverage by The New York Times indicates, however, Judge Bunning is being greeted with fawning attention in the Davis case because he had muzzled Christians previously for standing up for their faith. The coverage demonstrates that there is a pattern of anti-Christian activity on the federal bench and in the media.


 

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media blog.