The Little Gadfly: Kim Davis is absolutely right not to issue same-sex marriage licenses…

By A. Faulkner

…and absolutely wrong not to resign from her position immediately.

Like a lot of others, I’ve been watching the unfolding Kim Davis drama with roiling mix of emotions.  Day by day I might be amused, disgusted, just plain confused.  Her supporters have held her forward as a crusader against tyranny and a civil rights folk hero akin to Rosa Parks.  Her detractors have compared her to everyone from George Wallace to Hitler.  Amidst it all, thank God, there are more than a few people encouraging us to take a step back and laugh at it all, such as the Twitter account @nexttokimdavis.

But I’d like to take the middle road, the one that has seen far less press coverage because in our polarized nation we all love a good, hearty squabble more than a reasonable conversation: Kim Davis is neither a hero nor a villain.  She’s a low-level government employee in semi-rural Kentucky who is a little selfish and a little bit hypocritical just like pretty much every other human being on the face of the planet.

I fully believe that Kim Davis is absolutely right not to issue same-sex marriage licenses if she believes that to do so is a violation of her faith.  Growing up my father told me, “The only thing that no one can take from you is your integrity.”  Others might take from you your health, your worldly possessions, your loved ones, even your public reputation.  But the only person who can destroy your integrity is you.  To violate that which you hold sacred (in this case Ms. Davis’s religious beliefs) is to destroy the only thing in this world that is yours and yours alone.

It’s madness.

So I agree wholeheartedly that Kim Davis should not put her name on any same-sex marriage licenses.  But I disagree wholeheartedly when Ms. Davis claims, “I spent six days in jail because I could not abandon my faith” (LATimes, Michael Muskal).  Well, no.  You spent six days in jail, Ms. Davis, because you could not abandon your job.  Big difference.  And herein we get into the part where Ms. Davis is – gasp! – human.  She’s selfish and she’s hypocritical.  She wants to hold to her sacred beliefs… only so far as it does not require giving up a steady paycheck and an apparently pleasant livelihood.

That’s not how conviction really works.  I admit I’m not a big Bible-reader myself, but as I understand it, Jesus’s disciples didn’t get to just say, “Yeah, that Jesus guy is totes awesome.  We love that guy!” and go on with their normal lives, content in their knowledge of their proclaimed faith.  No.  The story I remember most vividly is fishermen abandoning their nets to literally walk after Jesus with nothing in the world left to them but the clothing on their backs.  It is not holding to your faith to stay with your nets and shout out a few soundbites as Jesus passes by.  You follow your convictions wherever they lead you, or you don’t pretend to follow them at all.  This is the spiritual reality of Kim Davis’s position.

The practical reality is equally clear-cut.  Kim Davis is, quite simply, no longer capable of performing her job duties.  The debate about whether or not these job duties are immoral is immaterial.  If she can no longer perform her job functions then she should step down.  Of course, the word that keeps popping up in her press conferences is ‘accommodation’, which relates to the terminology used in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. in 2014.  ‘Accommodation’ brings to mind the general concept that, just like allowing employees time off for religious holidays, etc., certain specific issues that may arise between an employee (or corporation’s) faith and their work, legal, or civic obligations, should be mitigated.  But the issues are where this accommodation ends (especially in light of a governmental office) and, for me, how letting an organization accommodate one’s religious beliefs allows one to hold to his or her convictions anyway.

So Kim Davis believes it is a violation of her faith to issue same-sex marriage licenses, but she does not believe it is a violation of her faith to work for and receive payment from an organization she believes regularly participates in immoral activities?  Would it be acceptable to be an accountant for a drug cartel or the IT support personnel for Ashley Madison?  Does Christianity really allow for its faithful to work for morally corrupt organizations so long as they, as Ms. Davis is doing now, ignore and avoid participation in the directly immoral actions by locking themselves away in their corner office?

That last question might actually lead us to a contradictory argument. Edmund Burke’s quote no doubt resonates with Ms. Davis’s supporters: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  So Ms. Davis certainly shouldn’t be sitting by in her office as Rowan County issues marriage licenses to homosexual couples now, but she was perhaps justified in making a very public display of civil disobedience to argue against this practice.  She can’t sit back and do nothing!  Still, I dither.  Would resigning from office and taking up a campaign against the clerks’ office as a private citizen not also have counted for ‘doing something’?

I think my ultimate problem stems from the fact that Ms. Davis is not just exercising her right to religious freedom, but, as so many others have stated, in her official position she is trying to impose this belief on her very small section of legal proceedings.  I am all for “cafeteria citizenship” as the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin seemed to sneer at the idea of personal convictions overpowering civic obligations.  I think Ms. Davis should be joining that crowd of protesters we’ve all seen on video.  She should resign and walk right out there and pick up a picket sign.  But I do draw the line at “cafeteria government” (New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin).  You are or you are not going to uphold the tenets of your government office and the law of the land as you swore to enact it to the letter.  So you should or you should not hold that office.  That simple.

Hold to your religious convictions.  Hold to all your convictions.  But if your convictions mean you can’t do your job, the only moral thing to do is step down.

Kim Davis’s continued occupation of an elected position she can no longer perform, nor condone, is ridiculous.  One of my favorite tweets out of this whole brouhaha thus far pointed out that even Star Trek had this whole issue figured out!

When you take an oath of office, you can only remain in that office so long as you can fulfill your oath.

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