Jack Abramoff, a former top lobbyist in the early 2000s who was found guilty in a corruption investigation for multiple charges, once ironically said “If you make the choice to serve the public… serve the public, not yourself.”
No matter what disagreeable laws are enacted in these United States that you may feel strongly against, an impressive feat that our country pioneered as a well-respected democracy is our ability to peacefully transfer power from one party to the next, without the government collapsing or becoming inoperable.
On top of that, laws may take a long time to add or reinterpret, but our founding fathers intentionally designed progress to be a slow process.
The functions of federal agencies, from the department of energy to the post office to even the state department, continue to operate normally, with little to no interruption, with little-to-no political interjection that prevents them from performing their basic, primary duties we expect from our government.
In other words, governmental functions are supposed to be apolitical. But government itself can be very political. When a position becomes too politicized, that position will cease to function properly. Such is the case of a governmental clerk.
The scandal surrounding Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay as well as straight couples as a reaction to the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision recognizing gay marriage has spiraled into the national spotlight for the past few weeks. It is a scandal I found baffling, primarily because of the precedent she may establish if she is not held accountable.
Even poor Pope Francis couldn’t be spared as a political tool for Kim Davis’s battle for licensure control, as a brief, private meeting with Kim Davis and her husband was intentionally leaked by Davis and her lawyer to the public to generate increased support for her cause. The Vatican announced a sense of regret for such a visit taking place, as the meeting with the Pope (who did not even invite Kim Davis, mind you) should not be “considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects…” Talk about abusing the privilege of meeting with a holy figure to further your own agenda.
Kim Davis, an Apostolic Christian who follows a Protestant movement called Apostolic Pentecostalism, who has herself been married four times, stopped issuing any marriage licenses based on the notion that same-sex marriage conflicted with her religious views on marriage, and that she should be exempted from doing a part of her job she finds immoral.
This matter was taken to court, but the court rejected her claims.
Despite a federal order to comply with issuing all licenses, Davis has refused to do so. While she had been temporarily jailed and fined for disobeying this order, she cannot simply be fired from her county clerk position, as it is an elected office. As an elected official, she took an oath to fully perform her duties according to the laws of the state and the Constitution as a public servant.
She can be subject to a recall election and be released.
Although she’s been released from jail, she’s been ordered not to interfere with other deputy clerks issuing marriage licenses, but that hasn’t stopped her from continuing to defy orders.
In Kentucky, it’s a criminal act for a federal employee of her elected position to intentionally refuse to do their duties. Whatever you believe regarding gay marriage, you cannot deny that Davis is blatantly breaking the law.
I acknowledge Kim Davis’s religious beliefs, despite her credibility issues on the subject. That’s her constitutionally-given right.
However, as a federal employee, she crossed the line by imposing her religious beliefs on her work as a representative of a governmental institution. It’s discriminatory, plain and simple.
As I learned from an enlightened 10-year-old about this issue, “Getting mad about gay marriage is, like, the same as getting mad at the person in front of you in line at Subway that didn’t order your favorite sandwich.”
The issue with the Davis fiasco isn’t about living by her religious beliefs. It’s about manipulating those beliefs as a tool in a governmental position, which is a clear violation of separation of church and state.
For example, let’s say that President Obama goes to a religious forum to talk about his faith. This is fine because Mr. Obama is talking about his faith as a regular person, not as a governmental entity. But if President Obama were to press Congress into making Methodism the state religion, that’s illegal. The Constitution clearly states that the country cannot establish a state religion. If the President is not allowed to establish one, what gives a mere County Clerk the right to push her religious beliefs upon others?
Davis shifted an issue that was already resolved by the highest federal courts and made it about herself, which completely goes against the spirit of public service.
She politicized a duty that should have never been tampered with. She brushed off the checks and balances that ensure we enforce federal law to its current interpretations. Her actions disrupted an agency function and induced plenty of headaches for any couple looking to be married.
Imagine if other agency employees started taking action similarly to Kim Davis’. Our government’s gears would probably slow to a crawl – government shutdown not needed.
Unfortunately, she isn’t the only clerk in the country refusing to issue gay marriage licenses using similar reasoning. Sadly, their actions are no different than the clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to interracial or black couples in the early 20th century citing similar “religious” beliefs.
Do you remember the last time a major federal court order was disobeyed in the country?
James Meredith had some headaches dealing with former governor Ross Barnett, who refused to allow Ole Miss or any Mississippi college to be integrated – despite being ordered by the president and the supreme court to do so.
Barnett refused to uphold federal law, noting that Mississippi “would not surrender to the evil and illegal forces of tyranny.”
But we’ve come a long way since then, and while standing for up for your beliefs is an admirable trait, hiding your bigotry behind a religion or other entity while representing another institution is not something that should be praised or glorified.
As an American who wants to ensure equal rights and fair services to all U.S. citizens in the spirit of the Constitution laid out by our founding fathers, I’d be okay if we don’t try to federalize bigotry anymore.
Asad Uddin is a senior public policy leadership major from Oxford.
