In June of 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a stroke of the keyboard, ordered every State of the nation immediately to throw out the divine and natural law with respect to marriage and confer the legal status of marriage on two people of the same gender. This was done notwithstanding thousands of years of law to the contrary and notwithstanding the recently affirmed laws of a variety of States. One practical implication of this decision is that across the nation, over 3,000 county clerks were ordered to start issuing marriage licenses or record and recognize as marriages when presented with two people of the same gender. They were ordered to put their name on a public record declaring something that violates the divine and natural law to be a marriage.
Of over 3,000 county clerks, of whom I must assume some number to be Catholic (since Catholics account for almost a quarter of the American population), how many stood up and said “No, this is an unjust law and I will not violate the divine and natural law.” So far only one.
Kim Davis the elected clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky announced after the Supreme Court decision that her office would cease issuing any marriage licenses as long as the law required them to be issued to two people of the same gender. In case you are wondering, Kim Davis is not a Catholic; she is Protestant. Thus, while the silence of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy following the decision of the Supreme Court (the majority of whom are Catholic) resounds around the world, as the liberal cliques form to engineer the upcoming Synod on the [destruction] of the Family, while Catholic county clerks in the same position as Kim Davis do nothing, this one Protestant woman refuses to violate the higher law.
What is the response of the land of the free and the home of the brave to her action? To throw her in jail. On September 3, Kim Davis was ordered to be imprisoned for refusing to obey a court order to issue marriage licenses. Her plea to the U.S. Supreme Court for relief so that she not be forced to choose between violating the natural and divine law or prison was summarily rejected in one sentence without comment or any dissent. The same Supreme Court that rambled on about liberty and human dignity in the Obergfell v. Hodges cared nothing for Kim Davis’ right not to be cast into prison for obeying the divine and natural law. Liberty has been reduced to a right to do wrong rather than its true definition of a right to do what is good. Everyone can do whatever they want as long as what they want has nothing to do with what the divine and natural law requires.
Kim Davis speaking from the law written on the heart immediately distilled the essence of the problem: “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. To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience."[1] Such a statement should have been issued by a Catholic bishop encouraging his flock to refuse this unjust law. Yet, when the silence of the U.S. hierarchy resounds around the world, this lone Protestant woman stands up and clearly articulates a perennial principle of Catholic doctrine, an unjust law is no law at all and cannot be obeyed. When God’s chosen instruments refuse to do their duty, he will use other means to make the truth known.
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The injustice of Kim Davis being thrown into prison for refusing to violate the divine law is manifest throughout the way the case was handled. The specific holding of the Supreme Court was that people of the same gender could not be denied marriage licenses solely on the basis of their being the same gender. Kim Davis not wishing to violate the divine law simply ordered the county clerk’s office to cease issuing any marriage licenses. Yet, such a legal technicality could not stop those enraged by her actions. Even though she has not denied anyone a license on the basis of lacking a marriage partner of the opposite gender, she is found guilty.
Further, as an elected official, Kim Davis cannot be thrown into prison for her actions in her public capacity. She was not being sued personally but in fact it was the county that was being sued. Under the law she cannot be punished for actions of the county. Clearly the plaintiffs in the law suit want to get rid of Kim Davis but they were faced with the problem that she is an elected official and cannot therefore be fired. If the voters of Rowan County do not like what she is doing as county clerk, their legal remedy is to vote her out in the next election. If she has committed a crime, Kentucky law provides that she can be impeached by the elected state legislature. Yet, the liberal hypocrisy that waxes lyrical about democracy and the democratic process and the voice of the people exposes itself. When the people freely chosen by the voters of Rowan County refuse to conform to the demands of the liberal establishment then all the nice words about democracy and elections get thrown out the window.
Likewise all the rhetoric about the “rule of law’ that is used to criticize whatever nation the U.S. wants to make war on next is also jettisoned. Even though Kim Davis cannot be sued or punished in her personal capacity and the legal remedy is for the voters to fire her in the next election, such legal niceties are irrelevant to the agenda of Liberalism. She must be punished for dissenting from the latest liberal attack on the divine law and cast into prison.
The voters obviously didn’t know what they were doing when they elected this county employee for over 20 years whose mother served as county clerk before her election in 2014. She must be cast into prison for refusing to violate the law written on her heart. Now that the Catholic Church has been dialoged into submission to Liberalism, any individuals insane enough to question the liberal status quo must be silenced.
The vehemence of the reaction to Kim Davis’ actions demonstrate the hatred behind the attack on her. She relayed her recent experience in a Fox News interview published on September 3, “They told my husband they were going to burn us down while we slept in our home. . . . He’s been told that he would be beaten up and tied up and made to watch them rape me. I have been told that gays should kill me.” This is the response when one lone voice stands up to defend the rights of God: They deserve to be raped and burned to death.
The new persecution is upon us. We are reaching a point in which the only constitutionally protected freedoms are the freedoms to violate the divine and natural law. Meanwhile, the divinely appointed Catholic shepherds continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic of the Conciliar Church. Perhaps this lone Protestant woman in Kentucky will wake the Catholic Church out of her stupor. The Liberal world will accept nothing but total surrender to its agenda.
Let us pray that God rewards Kim Davis’ defense of His honor by granting her the grace to find her way to His Church. Even without this grace she has already shown she has a better grasp on Catholic doctrine on this point than the muted shepherds who should be willing to stand with her in prison to defend the law of their Master.
[1] Quoted in Marcia Coyle, “Defiant Kentucky Clerk Ordered to Court in Same-Sex Marriage Standoff,” The National Law Journal, September 2, 2015.
