Is Kim Davis Upholding "God's Law" or Committing Sin?

Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same
sex couples, insists that she refuses to issue the licenses because it violates her right to exercise
her freedom of religion. But is this really a case of "religious freedom" as she (and now Mike
Huckabee, Ted Cruz and a host of other evangelical fanatics) would have us believe? I think not.

As a result of the hysteria created around this case and the fervor among the evangelical right
that it has created I fear that many will be unduly persuaded into accepting that exemptions
ought to be carved out for civil authorities who cite "deeply held religious convictions" as an
excuse to be derelict in their duty.

Right wing evangelicals insist that this is a case of religious persecution but when a lens of
reason is held up to it we can see that it really is nothing more than homophobia disguised as
religious conviction. Kim Davis is a clerk. The job of a "clerk" is to record. Kim Davis is not being
asked to approve of, sanction or participate in any way that violates her religious convictions as
regards same sex marriage. She is not providing permission for same sex couples to legally
marry; that permission is given by the Constitution (as explained by the Supreme Court). She is
being asked to provide verification that couples applying for marriage licenses are legally entitled
to receive them according to the State of Kentucky which she swore an allegiance to represent.
The same sex couples who have applied are legally entitled to receive licenses and so to
withhold those licenses from them is not to uphold a Christian tenet but rather is to violate a
commandment.

In James 3:1 we're warned "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." Ms Davis, her champions
and their minnions should have heeded that verse because, by taking it upon herself to be the
arbiter of Biblical morality (a risky proposition by any measure), she has inadvertantly made
herself into a liar (a bearer of false witness) and a trespasser rather than a warrior for God. Mike
Huckabee, Ted Cruz, et al are defending and celebrating an unrepentant sinner -- no surprise to
me.

Refusing to provide verification that couples are legally entitled to marry when those couples are
legally entitled to marry is a deceitful thing -- including in the eyes of God. Kim Davis is not
refusing to participate in what she imagines to be an abominaton but only refusing to
acknowledge something that is true and which she knows to be true but will not admit is true.
She was never asked, as County Clerk, to adjudge the merits (or morality) of the marriage she is
licensing but only to adjudge its legality under Kentucky law. To characterize Ms Davis' refusal to
issue the licenses as a matter of conscience is to misappropriate the nature of her position.

Deceit though is not the only sin. Not only is she being a fraudulent witness she is guilty of
trespass too as she is misappropriating her authority to impose certain religious beliefs on others
who have every right to expect impartial treatment by her office. She acquired her (well paying)
position with the understanding that it is a secular position and that her duty is to uphold the
laws of the State of Kentucky and serve her constituency, not to impose Biblical law. It is entirely
disingenuous for her to now claim that her commitment is conditional when she previously
understood the commitment to be absolved from ecumenical (or any religious) considerations.

I suspect that if Kim Davis had not been blinded by her homophobic tendencies she would have
realized that she is not morally bound to become a self appointed judge of what does or doesn't
constitute moral turpitude but rather is morally bound to be witness to (which is, after all. her
job) the fact that applicants are entitled to have their marriage legally recognized. The same
applies with regard to her duty as a Christian, her moral obligation to her faith was only ever to
bear witness to what secularism demands of it, not to commit trespass upon that secularism or
deny the truth of it in the eyes of her god.