Kim Davis

I'd like to point out to Greg, and anybody else, who thinks I was comparing her confession to martyrdom...I did not intend that in any way, and I disagree vehemently with any of her supporters who are. My point was made more to the idea that being a member in good standing of the EO church is not necessarily a rquirement for someone to be doing a very Christian thing. Perhaps this is a protal through which she may be started on the way to The Truth.

GregConstantine said:

I'm bothered by the rush to come to this person's defense, even to the point of making her out to be some sort of martyr for the faith. What is even more bothersome is that there are Orthodox people doing this, and plastering it all over FB.

Here are two main reasons why this is bothering me:

1) Kim Davis, not to judge her standing before God, is not an Orthodox Christian. Declaring someone a martyr for the faith or for Christ is only reserved for Orthodox Christians. For those who are not, but take some kind of a stand or is killed for whatever faith they have, we reserve judgment of both kinds, refraining from saying they are or they are not a martyr.

2) This woman was under no duress to do what she did. She was not forced to be in her position of county clerk, she was not forced under some kind of duress to give out marriage certificates. No one threaten her with bodily or financial harm if she didn't do her job. This is absolutely not like the early days of the Church, when we were persecuted. We were forced to bow down to idols and burn incense to Ceasar. Kim Davis was not. How dare people say Kim Davis' situation and the martyrs of the early Church is the same! Shame on them!

This woman should have resigned from her position.

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American's are spoiled rotten by the lifestyle we have here and Christians are no exception to this. We talk about a judgement by the SC as some sort of unforgivable burden on us being Christians, when people are being beheaded and whole families are being uprooted and forced to flee with whatever they have on their backs in Syria and Iraq. We don't have one iota of a clue what real persecution tastes like, because we've had our cake and have been able to eat it for such a long time, we've lost sight of what it is to truly hurt.

This women is no martyr any more than the solders who fought and died in Iraq considered themselves as heroes. This is something juvenile that people come up with to praise those who they deem sticks it in the eye of those who are, to them represent tyranny.

The KKK was heroes to those who wanted to retain the legitimacy of white rule. Senator MC Carthy was also hailed as a hero by those who believed in what he was doing. There have been many examples of this craziness and each and every one of those examples were about people who thought they were being victimized by the situation they were in and simply bestowed an honored title because it felt good to do some.

A hero is in every household where there are parents that take their duties as parents seriously and do everything they can to give their children the best chance in the world to make it in life. A martyr is no less than this and is much, much more as they have taken it all and given it all, up to and including sacrificing themselves for what is important to them.

Havent been following the story, didn't even know her name was kim davis until this post.
Atleast this thread cleared something up, I was wondering why she would be sent to jail and not fired. Didnt realize a clerk was an elected position. There should be a removal process, this whole fiasco seems odd to me.

Atleast it shows how ridiculous civil marriages are in 2015. Why any male would want to go through such legalities is beyond me. Goes to show how people would do anything to save some money in tax credits.

buzuxi02 said:

Havent been following the story, didn't even know her name was kim davis until this post.
Atleast this thread cleared something up, I was wondering why she would be sent to jail and not fired. Didnt realize a clerk was an elected position. There should be a removal process, this whole fiasco seems odd to me.

Atleast it shows how ridiculous civil marriages are in 2015. Why any male would want to go through such legalities is beyond me. Goes to show how people would do anything to save some money in tax credits.

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This woman's mother was once the County Clerk and she was a deputy County Clerk. Now she is the County Clerk and her son is a deputy County Clerk. She makes 80k a year in a smallish county in Kentucky (which is pretty good in these parts). Nepotism is a definite issue to consider. What I find weird is how unevenly she applies her Christian principles. Did she refuse marriage licenses to those that had been divorced or were Christians marrying out of the faith?

She should have resigned her position in protest. She was given multiple options in lieu of avoiding jail.

AHH who-stole-my-name said:

This women is no martyr any more than the solders who fought and died in Iraq considered themselves as heroes.

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could you clarify this line please? I had friends who came home in body bags, and I have welcomed more caskets home than I'd like.

ArmyMatt said:

could you clarify this line please? I had friends who came home in body bags, and I have welcomed more caskets home than I'd like.

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I meant to have said the soldiers considered themselves as heroes. I made a error in grammer by including the and died in the context I placed it, sorry.

I had in mind concentrating on those who returned alive because, in order to be able to consider anything they have to be alive to do so. I had the opportunity to serve for 8.5 years in the military and have talked with those who not only fought in viet Nam but I had the chance to talk with my uncle, a WWII vet and some of his friends. To a man, neither they or those I've spoken with from any of the Gulf conflicts considered themselves as heroes. They did though consider those who died as heroes, which I do as well, but my statement wasw not about those who died and this was the focus of my statement.

ArmyMatt said:

then if she were fired, as a Christian, it should not matter. I only said that because she did not necessarily need to be fired, and you said that her stepping aside/down/whatever was a euphemism for it. I was only pointing out that is not necessarily the case. if you signed up for a job where you did not perform an abortion, and then the law forced your hand so to speak, you should not have an issue quitting or being fired. I know I wouldn't.

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Certainly. But is losing one's source of income NOT hardship? And do you think this will stop at county clerk's offices? Do you think this won't march into your workplace, where you are forced into a similar choice of acknowledge evil, or be fired? And when it is in all workplaces, to what workplace will you go? How will you feed your family? Yes, we may have to endure such persecution, but you ought to admit that it IS persecution, and what I am getting is that you think it isn't.

I want to thank Dzheremi for his last post, and say that my prior one was written in an emotional state when I would have been better off not posting. There are things I both agree and disagree with, and when I have actual time, I will address them. One thing I can say now on the quick is that how we feed our families is part of our lives. It is not "optional". If someone forces us to do something at our job, they have stepped into our lives. And while we may be free to try to find another way to feed our families, if this policy is allowed into all places, then there will be nowhere to go.

I believe we are in a position in which we are on a knife's edge, between having to helplessly suffer whatever is dished out, and being able to muster political power in this temporal world to stave off (for a time, only, of course) godlessness. I don't think all political action useless or unnecessary, though I think it secondary to our primary business of aiming for the Kingdom of God. I think we are supposed to love our neighbor here, and that means doing what we can. I don't think that we have to acknowledge illegitimate law, and I think we may, I say may, still have the power to stand up to the powers that be and change it. If we don't, oh well, we get persecution. But if we do have that power, and don't change it, I think we are guilty of not loving our neighbor, our neighbors, friends, children, etc.

I don't accept your dichotomy of "secular vs Protestant". I think Chesterton much more spot on:
"Now that is a small and purely political point. But to me it was very awakening. It showed me quite clearly the fundamental truth of the modern world. And that is this: there are no Fascists; there are no Socialists; there are no Liberals; there are no Parliamentarians. There is the one supremely inspiring and irritating institution in the world; and there are its enemies. Its enemies are ready to be for violence or against violence, for liberty or against liberty, for representation or against representation; and even for peace or against peace.

It gave me an entirely new certainty, even in the practical and political sense, that I had chosen well."

There are no secularists, there are no Protestants. There are the enemies of Christ and there are those that strive towards him. Yes, there are many errors in heterodoxy. But there is something at the heart, even of heterodoxy, that is very right. And we should NOT "stand aside and let them fight it out". We must remember our true goals, and avoid sin, but we are not here merely for our own salvation. (Not that you're saying we are.)

And that's my "short" response.

It seems to me that the ground beniegth her totally changed when the SC ruling took place and she should have made the appropriate choices when the new reality of legalized gay marriage came to her mind. She know fully well what she did fr a living and knew that she would be the one to stand there and issue these certificates.

the issue of serving two masters, The state and it's designs and God and his, came to mind and I was wondering why she didn't resign as soon as her conscience hit her with fully what what the ruling meant to her position here.

Her actions as not removing herself from public office as a conscientious Christian and grandstanding to boot, with this self righteous walk into jail pretty much tells me that it was more about her being seen standing up for her faith than actually her standing up.

Rus, how is admitting that this situation is one that pits secularists and Evangelicals against one another creating a dichotomy wherein these are the only two choices? Have I not been repeating over and over in this thread that it is our job (as neither) to show that this is a gross simplification of the real issues at play? This is why I brought up the action of Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon earlier, as he rests his own unwillingness to participate in the state's redefinition of marriage on what I believe to be solid, historically rooted sacramental/theological grounds. If you don't understand the difference between that and what this lady is doing (not doing her job and still expecting to keep it and get paid), then I don't know what to tell you. There are plenty of Orthodox Christian responses to these matters that do not fall into either easy characterization, which is precisely why they don't get media coverage. All I have pointed out is that the dialogue going on today is "crazy, hypocritical gay-hating Bible-thumpers like Duck Dynasty guy, or that Duggar molester guy, or now this Kim Davis do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do lady vs. tolerant and inclusive and 'loving' secularists who march along in the Godless infinite progress of equality for every sexual or religious minority that isn't Christian", which does not easily lend itself to gaining support among Orthodox Christians. Or at least I don't think it should. We clearly did not create this narrative. That's my point in talking about Evangelicals and Secularists. Neither groups' points are even crafted with us in mind, but because its their narrative, we're apparently having a hard time not being idiots and jumping onto the side of the "most Christian of the two", wherein the choice is obvious but ends up harming us in the end, because then we take on all the baggage of associating with Evangelicals who just view us as lost pagans anyway because we're not "Bible alone" or "Once Saved Always Saved" or whatever their flavor of Protestant is. It's a lose-lose situation precisely because we didn't create this current climate, not because we have to choose one of the other. If anything we make it worse by thinking that choosing the "right one" of the two wrong choices will help us whether the coming problems.

On that note, an aside: If I am overly patient and waiting until we all get killed, as you wrote, then isn't it at least equally as likely that you are seeing doom scenarios where other people, other Orthodox Christians even, are not? Why are you correct and they are not? And I do not doubt the capacity of the Church to joyfully and courageously produce martyrs, should it come to that, so I do not worry about that potential scenario, however unlikely it may be. I just don't think that things like this are what's going to do it, because when you get right down to it, both sides involved seem more interested in the politics of the issue than the principle.

I have no problem with this woman refusing to issue licenses/certificates or whatever the hell you married people call this permission slip, as i think gay rights/weddings/ are the height of absurdity. Well that and sticking it to the government brings joy to my heart. But now I have more reason to ridicule this entire idiotic system, that for some reason this is an elected position where removal from that position is not by referendum nor by locking them out of the office but by locking them up in a jail cell!

buzuxi02 said:

I have no problem with this woman refusing to issue licenses/certificates or whatever the hell you married people call this permission slip, as i think gay rights/weddings/ are the height of absurdity. Well that and sticking it to the government brings joy to my heart. But now I have more reason to ridicule this entire idiotic system, that for some reason this is an elected position where removal from that position is not by referendum nor by locking them out of the office but by locking them up in a jail cell!

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She wasn't removed, technically, she was jailed for being in contempt of court, which is separate from her losing her position.

muichimotsu said:

She wasn't removed, technically, she was jailed for being in contempt of court, which is separate from her losing her position.

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I myself am in contempt of that court. Jail me!

I think this bears repeating: if we accept the judicial rulings as the law of the land (though I understand them to be rulings, not laws), then they will affect everything, not only county clerk's offices. There will not be a job where you can not be required, potentially, to confess the legitimacy of sodomic marriage. There will be no option to "change jobs". It is already happening and will happen quickly. People who think we will have the freedom and option to move around and change jobs (a thing most do not find terribly easy as it is) will be seriously disillusioned, and over the next couple of years, at that. This woman took her stand on her home turf, and in my estimate was right to do so. Her own past is as irrelevant as ours is. If she has repented of her sins, then we have absolutely no right to judge her. (Even if she hasn't...)

I don't think it's "doomsday"; but it is a serious turn for the worse. It wasn't quite doomsday in 1938 when the appeasement of Hitler went down, but it was a serious turn for the worse.

rusmeister said:

Certainly. But is losing one's source of income NOT hardship? And do you think this will stop at county clerk's offices? Do you think this won't march into your workplace, where you are forced into a similar choice of acknowledge evil, or be fired? And when it is in all workplaces, to what workplace will you go? How will you feed your family? Yes, we may have to endure such persecution, but you ought to admit that it IS persecution, and what I am getting is that you think it isn't.

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oh I concur whole heartily, but that is not that high on the persecution list although it is. I was merely commenting on the euphemism not necessarily being the case is all.

AHH who-stole-my-name said:

I meant to have said the soldiers considered themselves as heroes. I made a error in grammer by including the and died in the context I placed it, sorry.

I had in mind concentrating on those who returned alive because, in order to be able to consider anything they have to be alive to do so. I had the opportunity to serve for 8.5 years in the military and have talked with those who not only fought in viet Nam but I had the chance to talk with my uncle, a WWII vet and some of his friends. To a man, neither they or those I've spoken with from any of the Gulf conflicts considered themselves as heroes. They did though consider those who died as heroes, which I do as well, but my statement wasw not about those who died and this was the focus of my statement.

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I think we have more living heroes who returned as well, sometimes the scars are not clearly visible, and I certainly would classify many of those I went to Afghanistan with as heroes, even those that returned alive.

One this missing here is that she could have had the deputy clerks issue the licenses. That is a workaround that many places adopt to allow people to have conscientious objections to issue marriage certificates for whatever reason - as long as there's somebody there that can do it, they defer to them. However, Kim Davis refused to allow others to do so. One of the suggested compromises was to let her out if she would not interfere with the people under her issuing marriage licenses. She did not accept that compromise.

gzt said:

One this missing here is that she could have had the deputy clerks issue the licenses. That is a workaround that many places adopt to allow people to have conscientious objections to issue marriage certificates for whatever reason - as long as there's somebody there that can do it, they defer to them. However, Kim Davis refused to allow others to do so. One of the suggested compromises was to let her out if she would not interfere with the people under her issuing marriage licenses. She did not accept that compromise.

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Also noting that one of those under her that could issue marriage licenses is her son, who said he wouldn't issue them either.

And you guys actually think it is cool to OK your subordinates to issue a license that you won't?
Please tell me that's not the case. (I could really be misunderstanding you and am trying hard not to.)

ArmyMatt said:

oh I concur whole heartily, but that is not that high on the persecution list although it is. I was merely commenting on the euphemism not necessarily being the case is all.

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If you have to lose your job, then it most certainly is a euphemism.