It took a comment by Craig Smith to remind me, there really is a Win-Win solution to the culture war.
Yet another good reason for government to get OUT of the marriage license business.
Exactly so. There is no need for the Government to be in the marriage business in the first place. Getting them out means there is no discrimination against Teh Gheys or Christians.
Win-Win.
Unfortunately, the Social Left is getting far too much gratification from using Government to force their social views on society to give up this power willingly.
Add to that, it seems the primary reason for getting into the marriage license business in the first place was to prevent inter-racial marriages, or at least make those who wanted one pay a “bribe” to allow it. Before that, you just went to a church, or, a Justice of the Peace who performed the ceremony and presented you with a document. No license needed.
Also, I have been over the entire list of reasons why civil unions are not marriages and most of the arguments came down to, “We can’t use civil unions to rub it in the face of those who oppose us.”
The inheritance reason? You should have a will, anyway. Then you don’t need the marriage to show inheritance.
The income tax advantage? There is none.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/03/11/how-much-the-marriage-tax-penalty-will-cost-you
The hospital visitation advantage? That’s been gone from most hospitals for decades, and you don’t solve a problem with a single hospital with a national law.
I could go on, but that suffices.
As a somewhat libertarian, I have been saying for years that there should be civil unions for all and let marriage be a religious institution. Some churches will welcome homosexual marriage while others will disdainfully abhor it.
davinci, I have long advocated the same thing. Too bad we’re drowned out. (Not here, but in the general discussion. Here the conversation has generally been pretty civil and reasonable from all sides.)
Nice find on the illustration, V the K. I could quibble on some of the more complicated professions, but in a lot of cases it is all too true.
Um… insofar as “marriage” (like “adoption”) amounts to “the creation of a legally binding kinship between two persons with no kinship ties by blood,” it seems to me that the Government very definitely needs to be involved in the business!
Of course, you could argue that the word “marriage” need not be used on Government forms, or that we should coin an entirely new word (the noun could be “haddockseye”, with the verb form “to haddoxize; to get haddoxized”) to describe legal homo-couple unions as distinct from the existing terms “marriage” (which implies a hetero union) or “adoption” (which implies a guardian/dependent relationship):
ADAM: Steve and I are getting haddoxized next month!
JANE: Congratulations — will the haddockseye be in a church?
ADAM: No, just a secular ceremony, but Steve’s parents’ rabbi has agreed to say a few words at the reception afterwards.
But even so, there’d be logical reasons for filing a notarized “haddoxization certificate” with the government.
Whether county clerk Kim Davis would/should agree to issue a “haddockseye” license to a same-sex couple is a separate question, of course.
(Has Davis given any indication that she might be more willing to issue same-sex marriage licenses IF AND ONLY IF the Kentucky law had been changed by actual Kentuckians in a local referendum? To me, this makes a difference.)
Nope, totally irrelevant. It’s because “God’s authority” (that was her phrase when denying a license last week) instructs her to neither issue nor sign same-gender marriage licenses.
Apparently she conflates her role as a registrar as akin to that of a clergyperson who actually solemnizes such unions. (Which, of course, raises rather obvious questions, such as if she signs and therefore–in her mind–“approves” licenses between interracial couples, or those who are already cohabiting prior to marriage, or those who already have natural children between the couple, et cetera.)
RSG: Kim Davis is an elected official. Should she or should she not represent those who elected her?
Your hypothetical is merely hysterical speculative nonsense.
Perhaps, all citizens should be treated the same under the law no matter what.
Not sure where you’re coming from with this; I didn’t have a hypothetical, Throbert McGee did. And yes, I believe that everyone should be treated equally under the law, which is why the Rowan County KY Clerk’s office should issue signed marriage licenses to anyone who can come up with the requisite fee.
I don’t know why, she just gives off some bad vibes. Like she would be the kind of person whom I would keep my kids away from.
“God’s authority” is a rather odd thing, she may want to avoid invoking it. After all, the same Scriptures that say that God hates gay people also says that God performs abortions on children conceived by adultery.
As I understand it, Kim Davis was elected to the post. Her job as elected bureaucrat is no different from that of an elected sheriff whose office may be down the hall. Obey the law and enforce the law. You can not pick and choose.
Because the nature of the “law” was changed by the SCOTUS, dear Kim Davis has a conundrum: to serve or not to serve. Because of her deeply held belief system, she has no recourse but to resign.
However, she has chosen to take the conscientious objector route. So, if the bureaucratic system finds a way to manipulate a willing agent to handle the applications which Kim Davis refuses to handle, will she stand aside? Or is she so determined that she finds herself impeached? And what comes next if the people reelect her by a stunning majority? The SCOTUS is all mouth and no enforcement capability.
A few days ago, Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds posted this:
Kim Davis is taking a stand. From the comments above, it appears that perhaps state legalized marriage needs to be given the heave-ho.
How many quiet, law-abiding middle-class citizens look at this sort of back and forth between gay activists, consider theSCOTUS re-jiggering our ancient cultural norms and decide that the country is broken and as Bumble said in Oliver Twist: If the law supposes that the law is a ass — a idiot.”? Having cultural trends imposed on a populace is not without a price.
Don Suber said it best when it comes to Kim Davis:
Now, just what we do about gay activists who want to force themselves on society as “victims” who deserve court enforced respect, I do not know. My preference is for dissatisfied gays to gather together in sanctuary cities and just have a gay old time being who and whatever they want to be. San Francisco, maybe?
Until activist gays learn to get along in the world without being protected by the political correctness police, they will stay riled up and full of indignant self-righteousness.
And there you have it: An indignant self-righteousness stand-off between Kim Davis and her message from God and the gay marriage license applicants who have the SCOTUS theoretical army at their backs. A plot line for a play that only Shakespeare could write.
Like many Christian fundie nut jobs, she is a hypocrite. She has been divorced three times and got knocked up without benefit of marriage. This is typical of their ilk. They sin a bunch, “find God”, then expect all others to lead pure and chaste lives. Sounds like Laura Schlesinger who had a rocking time early in her life and then became a shrew. Or that Duggar guy who screws his sisters, goes on line to cheat on his wife, and looks at straight porn.
I can also look at the leftie side of the aisle where all these tax lovers cheat on their taxes. Look at Sharpton, Rangel, Daschle, just to name a few. If you are going to preach like a saint, better act like one.
@ davinci: I was unaware of Kim Davis’ past. Color me completely unsurprised. Why is it that the Christians who get most upset about what people get up to in the bedroom have a sexual history of their own outside of before and often outside of the marriage bed? I’m fine with people trying to set their life in order. It’s when they suddenly turn into humorless puritans who try to make everybody miserable because they can’t have their fun anymore, or who start acting like their crap doesn’t stink, irritate the hell out of me. And as I’ve said before, I don’t have time for people who criticize others for sins and mistakes that they themselves have committed, unless it’s prefaced with, “Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Sean L:
You can do a Google search to see about Kim Davis’s past. I certainly was unaware until this evening.
Ditto. I have fundamentalist Christian neighbors who are wont to spout Bible verses in casual conversation, yet have broken most of the Ten Commandments multiple times (at least they haven’t murdered anyone yet—that I know of). So I’m automatically wary whenever I see the moralists who are suddenly offended by something which arises in society. (Not unlike Teh Gheys who yap about the wonderful institution of marriage upon which they are denied, and yet readily admit to having a “monogamish” relationship.)
As for Kim Davis, it’s great that she has literally “found Jesus”. But as someone on another blog pointed out (a fact I was previously unaware of), as a Democrat who apparently admitted when she ran for her mother’s old job in 2014, she knew that the issuance of same-gender marriage licenses might come to pass in the foreseeable future. So all the latest drama which has come down the pike in the past several months should have been foreseen and not come as a shock or surprise.
That raises the question of why she is behaving in the manner in which she is choosing. Is she playing the martyr card for the sake of playing the martyr (the Jeanne d’Arc of Rowan County)? Or is she hoping to hit the “crackpot jackpot”, and be rewarded with a plum position with an organization who can partner with her in the capitalization of the current state of public affairs? (I do believe that Josh Duggar’s old position with the Family Research Council is as yet unfilled.)
In the same vein, when I see news reports of her supporters outside the jail that serves as her current residence—some of whom are comparing her to Martin Luther King, Jr and others (or perhaps even the same ones, though I doubt it) talking about “Sodom” and “sodomites”, I’m beginning to wonder if she hasn’t already overplayed her hand.
So if you make mistakes in the past you can no longer follow a religious path in the present? In other words, only Leftists are allowed to change their minds.
And yet, I’ve not seen anything that indicates which of those relationships bore one of her current legacy deputies, namely her son Nathan.
you have change that government to politicians.
@ juan: No, it doesn’t mean that you are forbidden from following a religious path. It means that if you follow a religious path, you better not start acting holier-than-thou or turn into a Puritan. Sounds like Kim Davis may be both.
Churches are not museums for saints, but hospitals for sinners; this reality is much overlooked.
@ V the K: If that’s the case, many patients seem to be suffering from undiagnosed cases of terminal hubris.
So Sean, are you saying you’re sinless?
Because you are lecturing and screaming and judging and hectoring everyone else over their “sins” and acting superior.
Perhaps you should practice what you preach. But then again, you aren’t preaching out of conviction; you’re preaching out of bigotry and a need to control and manipulate others.
Which is what you project onto all other Christians.
So we can presume you have, since you’re playing the holier-than-thou card?
Because, after all, you insist that ever being wrong makes you unfit to point out that someone else is.
Or again, is the problem here one of projection?