Dan Savage destroys the marriage license denying antics of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis with her thrice divorces hypocrisy
Dan Savage appeared on MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and laid out the hypocrisy perpetrated by Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. Moreover he justifiably brought out Kim Davis’ own ‘skeletons’ as she tried to impose her judgement and beliefs on others. Given her own ‘skeletons’, is there another reason why Kim Davis is creating this spectacle at the expense of the rights and welfare of others?
Dan Savage points out the simple facts written by John Corvino at the Detroit Free Press.
Davis is not being drafted into service against her will. She has chosen a job that requires her to grant licenses in accordance with civil law. She is no longer willing to do that. She should not expect to keep her job, any more than a military commander would keep his job if he became a pacifist, or a surgeon would keep her job if she became a Christian Scientist and refused to perform surgery. Religious liberty does not entitle the bearer to line-item vetoes for essential job functions.
Davis cites her Apostolic Christian faith to support the traditional definition of marriage as one man and one woman. But civil marriage and religious marriage, though historically intertwined, are not the same thing, and Davis’s job is to administer the law, not a sacrament. Many conservative religious believers oppose interfaith marriage, or re-marriage after divorce. As citizens they are free to do so. They are not free, however, to substitute their understanding of marriage for the state’s when acting in an official state capacity.
Savage and many others believe Kim Davis wants to be a martyr. Her past however should question her qualification or authenticity to hold that martyrdom. Dan Savage was circumspect as he narrated her hypocrisy.
“She is a hypocrite,” Dan Savage said. “She said today … ‘I never imagined a day like this would come where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of scripture and of Jesus himself regarding marriage.’ This is a woman who has been divorced three times and married four times. … She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second husband. She is now onto her fourth husband. Jesus Christ himself in scripture condemned divorce, calls it adultery, and forbids it. Jesus Christ himself in scripture says not one word about same sex marriage.”
Earlier Dan Savage pointed out how many on the Right simply object to issues like same sex marriage to enrich themselves. They get book deals, windfalls from GoFundMe pages, and more.
Savage’s most prescient comment came at the end of the clip.
“Are we going to live in a society where we are going to empower people to break the law, disobey the law, to walk off their jobs when they are public servants, elected officials, people charged with the public trust?” Savage asked. “When someone violates their religious beliefs, is this something that Christians want to see Muslims doing or Jews doing? Do you want to have to call the grocery store if you want to go and buy some bacon and make sure everybody working that day is willing to handle pork products which not everyone is for religious reasons? Do you want cab drivers refuse to pickup single unaccompanied women because it violates their religious beliefs? We live in a pluralistic multicultural, multi-faith, multi-denominational within faiths society and it would be utter chaos if everyone was empowered to sight God’s authority to violate the law or break the law.”
Enough said. Well said.