Podcast #60: Pigs in a Blanket, Suicide Blonde, and Martyr Kim Davis

63 September 6, 2015 by

60_finalJason and Christian begin episode 60 of Drunk Ex-Pastors by enjoying some immediate karma for a lady who has it coming. They then lament the downfall of their favorite Survivor contestant and Fox and Friends correspondent, Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Going from bad to worse, the DXPs then discuss Michelle Carter, pretty much the worst girlfriend any guy could ask for. They then move on to Kim Davis, present-day “Rosa Parks” and Christian martyr, sacrificing her own freedom to make sure the sanctity of marriage is kept intact for heterosexual serial brides like herself. (Not only did three men marry her, but one of these apparently very desperate men married her twice!) Jason likes whatever Christian tells him to like and Christian likes his victory over the establishment. Christian is biebered by yet another way his body is attempting to do him in, and Jason is biebered either by being advertised to or by his own hypocrisy. He’s unsure.

Also, this episode sucked before Christian got his hands on it.

Links from this Episode

63 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. Enjoyed the ode to Spanish, since I’m still trying to catch up on all the podcasts I missed since I spent the summer in Vermont speaking only Spanish!

  2. Jason – Now, admittedly I am also a liberal so I am probably glossing over reactionary liberalism as well but I think that the differences you describe between liberalism and conservatism is real. Conservatism means fighting against progress and yearning for the status quo (not applying any judgement here but simply defining conservatism. While liberalism/progress is all about moving forward, so it doesn’t need a relief against tradition, it is simply looking to move forward. Again, not implying that one is better than the other.

    Also, the actor you guys are thinking about in The Hunt For Red October is Sam Neill. HOWEVER, he was not reading from the bible when the dialogue switches from russian into english. It was Tim Curry’s Dr. Yevgeniy Petrov who was quoting the bible verse.

    Damn, now I gotta go queue up The Hunt For Red October.

  3. Random thoughts…

    • Cooking is awesome. It’s something I look forward to every day.

    • The women of Fox News pretty much all look alike to me. If anyone’s job could ever be easily replaced by a robot, it’s theirs. Just program the robot to say, “Obama Bad! Guns good! Lower Taxes… Good! Vote Bush.”

    • Conservatives believe that only overt racism matters and if we just stop talking ab out race and racism then everything would be perfect. They don’t recognize institutional racism. They don’t recognize a broken justice system, because to them the justice system is doing exactly what it should be doing: incarcerating and keeping Those people in line.

    • Any group that challenges the status quo must be dismissed as extremist, communist, socialist, disruptive, terrorist, or any label de jour that will allow ‘decent’ folks to go back to their slumber and continue supporting the status quo.

    • The problem is that good cops aren’t really holding bad cops accountable. And when they do, they are often the ones that are punished, while prosecutors and juries treat the bad cops with kid gloves. Politicians are demanding tougher law and order policies despite dropping crime rates. We have too many guns in this country. People are seeing police as enemies now. Even as a middle aged white male, my own opinion is that unless the situation is bad enough that someone could die anyway, never call the police. Because you don’t know which cop is going to show up: Sheriff Andy who wants to help or Deputy Fife who wants to bust heads to prove how much of a man he is. And I’ve read and seen horror stories of how a non-violent situation ends with someone being shot or with the dog being shot. Violence will beget violence.

    • I no longer have a smart phone, but when I did, all of my texts were properly formatted and had correct spelling and punctuation. But I’m a bit of a grammar nerd.

    • Kim Davis was jailed because she refused to obey a legal court order and refused to allow her deputy clerks to do their jobs and issue the marriage licenses.

    • But you know, despite the fact that Congress is majority Christian, the President is a Christian, most of the Supreme Court is Christian, and the judge who issued the order and held Kim Davis in contempt is Christian, Christians are being persecuted and have no place in our government institutions.

    • As an aside, considering Jesus liked to eat and drink with outcasts, traitors, prostitutes, and sinners, I think Jesus would go to people’s big gay weddings and have a good time hanging out and talking to people and would tell the religious people today to stop being so obsessed with self-righteousness. But that’s just my opinion.

    • Hell, at the very least, you’d think Christians of all stripes would see attending or providing a service to a gay wedding would be a good opening to meet a bunch of ‘sinners’ and build relationships with them so they could share their faith with them.

    • Kim Davis is not a brave martyr standing against oppression. She’s the oppressor blocking the school entrance to black kids saying, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

    • Speaking of slaves, I’ll say again that I do find it confusing, amusing, frustrating, and difficult sometimes to think that we are taking moral instructions seriously from a holy book that endorses slavery.

    • And again, the marriage predates the state argument is ridiculous. Looking literally at the bible, Adam and Eve (if they existed at all) were never married. They shacked up. Cain, Able, and Seth would have had to marry their sisters. Polygamy was introduced pretty early on. The biblical laws that apply to marriage are okay with polygamy. If anyone in this country was fighting for traditional bible marriage, it was the 19th century Mormon church fighting against the redefinition of marriage imposed by the state. And we all know how well that worked out for the 19th century Mormons.

    • If you are a public business, you have to serve all of the public.

    • I’ve had to ignore four people on Facebook so far.

    • I love it when there are all sorts of posts from conservatives about, “I don’t recognize my country anymore” when it’s about giving health care to the poor or gay marriage or trying to get illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship or protecting the environment, and no posts like that at all when the latest crazed lunatic shoots a bunch of people.

    • I wish there was an island where folks like Glenn Beck could go to build their own perfect conservative ‘Christian’ society and leave the rest of us in peace. I’d gladly pay higher taxes if the US government would agree to build one for them.

    • It’s all about the End Times theology. They believe things will get worse and worse. Everyone will turn against Israel. The devil is deceiving the whole world. Nothing can be done, but you can be a light in the darkness until turbo vengeance Jesus shows up to take you away and then the liberals and gays will be sorry.

    • I like the fact that I live in a world where I can easily look up healthy and tasty food recipes. Makes it much easier to transition to a healthier lifestyle.

    • I’m not sure the Spanish are proud of everyone in South and Central America speaking Spanish as it reminds them both of the Empire they lost and the fact that the reason everyone speaks Spanish is because their ancestors systemically conquered, killed, and enslaved the native populations.

    • Antonio Banderas – The Mask of Zorro, The 13th Warrior, El Mariachi, the voice of Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies.

    You think the reason there are so many Smiths in the world is because being a blacksmith who made swords was such a necessary job that you got to stay home from the pointless medieval wars, and therefore would survive to, ah, comfort all of the town widows whose husbands died in battle? Just a thought…

  6. Yeah. I could not get past any post of hers without responding which led to round after round of posting and counter-posts and life is too short to spend that much time arguing on the internet especially when it’s not going to change anyone’s mind and just piss everyone off. I’m sure we’re both much happier.

  7. I actually thought it was Sean Connery reading from the bible, but watched the clip I linked to above when we put the episode up and realized my mistake. I remembered the name Sam Neill right when we stopped recording, of course.

  8. I’m not sure that I agree with Kim Davis, but why can’t they just make an accommodation in the law? She stopped issuing marriage licenses to everyone (not just gay couples); she thought that would keep her from being called charged with discrimination. Her main beef is that her name appears on all the licenses and marriage certificates. There is no reason for the government to require her name on them, seems like a simple accommodation could be reached with a change to forms. Other states have accommodations.

  9. Setting a side my catholic identity and commenting simply as an american….

    It is outrageous that Kim Davis was incarcerated.

    It is scary that we are allowing the supreme court to legislate.

    Once SCOTUS makes a ruling it is up to congress and the states to codify their ruling into law. The only law in front of Davis reads that same sex marraige isnt issued in her state. Important point: it doesnt matter whether or not the courts got the question right…. if we allow SCOTUS absolute power our checks and balances system has been wrecked.

  10. This is completely false. It is not her job as county clerk to pass moral judgement on others. It is simply her job to document and certify records. This is akin to your child’s english teacher one day coming into class and say that she wants to teach calculus now and so your kids should just suck it up and learn calculus in what is called an english class.

    Republicans love to talk about free market and christians love to talk about free will. Well, this is the perfect intersection of these two things. Kim Davis is not forced to do this job as a county clerk, she can quit and go work a million other jobs.

  11. Uh, breaking the law and defying the will of the courts pretty much means jail time.

    Congress is free to pass any law in response to this ruling. Congress is free to pass a law denying same sex marriages. That’s what checks and balance means.

  12. “This is completely false. ” – What exactly did I say was false?

    She has worked in the clerks office for over a decade, and her mother worked in it for over 30 years. I don’t see why taking her name off the forms is such a big deal.

  13. Here is an example of religious accommodation.

    Israeli President Reuven Rivlin paid a visit to Pope Francis in Rome, accompanied by his personal secretary Rivkah – an Orthodox-Jewish woman. When a person usually greets the pope, they shake his hand and bow down. But when Rivkah’s turn came to greet the pope, she explained to him that for religious reasons she could not shake his hand, nor could she bow down since he was wearing a cross. The pope then covered his cross with his hand, and bowed down to her!

    See, not so hard.

    http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/09/07/the-orthodox-jew-who-refused-to-bow-to-the-pope-now-this-is-the-epitome-of-a-strong-and-proud-jewish-woman/

  15. How far exactly should we go to accommodate one’s religious beliefs as a public servant? Should we allow a Muslim teacher 5 minutes to roll out his prayer rug at 9am in front of his class and pray facing Mecca? Should we allow a Jewish USDA inspector to refuse to inspect pigs or pork products?

    And which religions deserve that special accommodation? Can I start my own religion with sincerely held beliefs in the right to celebrate the Sabbath Monday through Friday so I can get paid for not doing my job lest my angry, as yet to be defined deity start smashing things down here on Earth?

  16. On an unrelated note, Stephen Colbert debuted on The Late Show last night (btw, doing the sign of the cross in first few minutes). That makes all 3 major late night shows hosted by Catholics (Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel). Just saying.

  17. It’s not outrageous. It’s the law. And the judge that sentenced her to jail time is actually a Catholic.

    They can’t fire her because she is elected. When she took the office, she swore an oath to uphold the constitution. The constitution is interpreted by SCOTUS. They ruled that it’s unconstitutional for states to ban gay marriages. This is completely within their purview whether you like it or not. Not only did Kim Davis refuse to sign the licenses, she refused to let anyone who worked for her issue them as well. When the (Catholic) judge ordered her to issue the licenses or else be in contempt of court, she refused to comply, and then because she was in contempt of court, she was put in jail. It’s all completely lawful and should be no surprise to her.

    Her job is not to personally approve of the licenses she issues, but to issue licenses from the state she represents, and SCOTUS has determined that the state cannot not issue marriage licenses because the couple getting married is gay. You may not agree with the decision, but it’s completely lawful and it’s the way things are supposed to work.

  18. No, it’s really not outrageous. She defied a legal court order.

    It’s always legislating from the bench when you disagree with their decision. SCOTUS was presented with a case where the constitutionality of a law was prohibited. They decided that the law was unconstitutional. Which means all similar state laws are now unconstitutional and therefore illegal and no longer applicable, meaning same sex couples can now marry in all 50 states despite previous prohibitions to the contrary. Meaning Kim Davis is defying the authority of the Federal government not even based on a specious state’s rights argument but on the notion that her particular religious understanding of scripture supersedes Federal law, which has no weight under the Constitution.

    If any of us refused to obey a legal court order, is there any doubt that we would be fined or sent to jail for contempt?

  19. Making accommodations is not some new or abstract theoretical question, it is also the law.

    Under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act, both public and private employers have a duty to exempt religious employees from generally applicable work rules, so long as this won’t create an “undue hardship,” meaning more than a modest cost, on the employer. If the employees can be accommodated in a way that would let the job still get done without much burden on the employer, coworkers, and customers — for instance by switching the employee’s assignments with another employee or by otherwise slightly changing the job duties — then the employer must accommodate them.

    Changing forms does not seem burdensome; there is no intrinsic need by the state for her name to appear on them.

    No reason to speculate, here are some concrete examples of accommodations:

    1. Nurses who had religious objections to being involved in abortions (even just to washing instruments that would be used in abortions);
    2. Pacifist postal workers who had religious objections to processing draft registration forms;
    3. A Jehovah’s Witness employee who had religious objections to raising a flag, which was a task assigned to him;
    4. An IRS employee who had religious objections to working on tax exemption applications for organizations that promote “abortion, … homosexuality, worship of the devil, euthanasia, atheism, legalization of marijuana, immoral sexual experiments, sterilization or vasectomies, artificial contraception, and witchcraft”;
    5. a philosophically vegetarian bus driver who refused to hand out hamburger coupons as part of an agency’s promotion aimed at boosting ridership;
    and more.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/04/when-does-your-religion-legally-excuse-you-from-doing-part-of-your-job/

  20. “Can I start my own religion with sincerely held beliefs”

    I’m all for protecting secular people from being compelled to violate their strong moral beliefs, as well. You should avoid forcing people in general, to violate, their conscience.

  21. You don’t seem to be willing to recognize that the nature of her job is different than a nurse or a postal worker or another type of employee. She was elected to perform certain duties. They can’t fire her, and it’s not just a matter of “changing forms.”

  22. Probably unsurprisingly, I immediately thought about the legalization of euthanasia when you were discussing the girl friend who talked her boy friend into committing suicide. If euthanasia became legal, you will see much much more of this. “Grandma, why don’t you let the doctors kill you? All of my friends parents decided to not burden their children. Why are you being so selfish?!”

    Legalized euthanasia, just like abortion, is a false freedom. In the case of abortion, how many women have abortions because their boyfriend pressured them, or their parents? How many are threatened with the ending of relationships or to be cut off financially. If euthanasia, become legal within a generation the practice will spread to the non terminally ill (starting to see this already), then to just the old. Our consumer throwaway culture spreading to life. If someone is inconvenient just get rid of them. I do not want this to be part of society, but it has already started.

    Also, if euthanasia becomes legal it creates troublesome conflicts of interest. If the doctor recommends ending your life over some other treatment, what drove that decision? Was it cost, the desire to free up a bed, laziness? You will see insurance companies say things like: “we can’t cover that surgery, but we can cover these pills that end your life.”

    In fact, the American Medical Association (AMA) agrees:

    It is understandable, though tragic, that some patients in extreme duress–such as those suffering from a terminal, painful, debilitating illness–may come to decide that death is preferable to life. However, permitting physicians to engage in euthanasia would ultimately cause more harm than good. Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.

    The involvement of physicians in euthanasia heightens the significance of its ethical prohibition. The physician who performs euthanasia assumes unique responsibility for the act of ending the patient’s life. Euthanasia could also readily be extended to incompetent patients and other vulnerable populations.

    Instead of engaging in euthanasia, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Patients should not be abandoned once it is determined that cure is impossible. Patients near the end of life must continue to receive emotional support, comfort care, adequate pain control, respect for patient autonomy, and good communication.

    Too bad they don’t extend this reasoning to abortion.

  23. Like I said, I don’t think I would do the same thing in her situation. In my mind it is still an open question as to whether or not she should just quit. However, if she is that concerned about her name and signature on the marriage certificate of gay couples equals her supporting it, I don’t see how changing the forms is that big a deal. I would rather see the situation worked out for both sides. Instead, rightly or wrongly, we are seeing a martyr created, unnecessarily.

  24. Well, the court did find a way around it eventually, but until it did, the (Catholic) judge threw her in jail for contempt of court so that they could issue the licenses. Personally, I think she wanted to be a martyr. I wish people would stop conflating this with religious persecution.

  25. I typically read your comments with a wonky eye, just to be able to take it in. This one takes the cake, though. You assume that everyone wants to see grandma die quickly and will suggest it. But as someone who has held the hand of MANY taking their last breaths, after suffering through long-term sickness – and someone who believes that euthanasia should be legal, you’re dead wrong in that assumption. Facts proven by those nations and states that have made euthanasia legal. Where do you get this stuff? Too much Fox News?

  26. I agree with a point Jason made a couple weeks ago about Protestants and sacramental marriages, that I think is at work in the Kim Davis situation. Protestants dropped sacramental marriages during the Protestant Revolt. They also rejected having a large governing organization that could be used to oversee their marriages. Yet they still have beliefs about what is and isn’t a (religious) marriage. This leads to them conflating civil and religious marriage. Therefore any change to civil marriage is a change to their marriage system.

    Catholics on the other hand, have an entire body of laws and courts (with their own lawyers and judges) that deal with their sacramental marriages. In fact, a Catholic isn’t even required to get a civil marriage to be viewed as married.

    With that said, I’m all for promoting my views, heavily influenced by religion, of human flourishing to civil society at large. But changes to civil marriage laws do not affect how the Church views it’s member’s marriages.

  28. Religious accommodation, or simply a respectful gesture to a fellow human by another? You’re attempting to classify it as one thing when really it is just compassion and empathy. Putting another before yourself. Less religion, more humanity.

  29. Let’s face it Kenneth – had she been jailed for something you disagreed with you would not be outraged. You want to say you’re putting your religion aside, I don’t believe you are – or you would be able to look at same-sex marriage in accordance with the constitution and not “moral” outrage.

  30. Protestants dropped sacramental marriages during the Protestant Revolt.

    Haha, I see whatcha did there. . . .

  32. You are speaking from a cultural milieu that views euthanasia as immoral for generations. Culture moves, ideas change. Just like when contraception was JUST going to be for married couples with dire medical conditions. So much for those early edge cases. To think that something like this isn’t going to spread is naïve.

  35. I think G.K. Chesterton has a great quote on conservatives vs. progressives:

    The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. ― G.K. Chesterton

  36. Same sex marriage has nothing to do with the constitution lol the decision by scotus represents judicial activism. Period. Its a bad idea to give one branch of government so much power.

  38. I think it’s great what you say here and agree with you completely but so long as “married” people, as defined by the government, have a set of rights that “single” people don’t (e.g. social security survivor benefit, hospital visitation rights, healthcare coverage, tax benefits for filing jointly -and- for death benefits), gay people need to have access to those rights just as much as non-gays.

  39. I don’t want or mean for the following sentence to come across as sounding like a dick but I’ve not really found a better way to say it:

    Everything you say also applies to your religion.

  41. So I was listening to another podcast and apparently, all Kim Davis needed to do to avoid being sent to jail for contempt of court was to sign a document relinquishing this part of her duty to her deputy clerk and she was unwilling to do that.

    The entire system bent over backwards trying to find every which way possible to accommodate Kim Davis from not doing her job.

  42. Nobody is denying Kim Davis’ right to be a bigot. Just as the nurse or postal worker comment Christian made from above, nobody is deny Kim Davis’ belief of anything. She went to jail for contempt of court.

  43. She’s probably from the Frank Lutz school of Democrats but shit, so what if she’s a Democrat? Someone not doing their job and defying court order should and ought to be called out irrespective of anything else.

    No political party has a monopoly on idiocy.

  45. Congress makes the laws. The President signs or vetoes them. The courts rule on challenges to their constitutionality. The supremacy clause ensures that Federal law supersedes state when the two are in conflict and ultimately the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

    Checks and balances, mate. Checks and balances.

    In this case, a plaintiff negatively affected by a state law, brought a lawsuit to court challenging its constitutionality. The courts ultimately agreed with his case that the law was unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

  47. The point is, your post was written from your religious perspective (which colours your cultural perspective). I mean, christianity itself has morphed and changed in the short time that it’s been around, first with catholicism, then protestantism with its myriad of sects. Who’s to say christianity isn’t going to morph further?

  49. Son of a bitch. I was wrong about Tim Curry too. :X

    But I did end up watching the movie last night. Damn it was good.

  50. lol. nice.

    but either way, chesterton’s quote also proves my point that conservatism is relief against progress/mistake.

  53. Davis, 49, has refused to resign her $80,000-a-year job. Elected as a Democrat, she can lose her post only if she is defeated for re-election or impeached by the state General Assembly. Katherine Franke, a professor at Columbia Law School, said legislators should find the political will to remove her, since she has ignored her oath of office in favor of her religious conviction.

    — http://news.yahoo.com/clerk-denied-gay-marriage-licenses-goes-back-082558362.html

  54. I wasn’t speaking about a personal perspective, but cultural wide perspective. Such as Western Culture has been heavily influenced by Christian values for centuries. Relatively recently a lot of ideas have been jettisoned, especially in the sexual ethic arena. The culture at large is still benefitting from cultural capital still present from previous generations. However, as the older generations die and we get further away from their culture, what they valued becomes less and less influential.

    So, for example, to say that you are for euthanasia being legal, but also couldn’t see it being abused – is because you are still influenced by ideas ingrained by a pre-euthanasia culture. However, as we get further into a post-euthanasia culture, and euthanasia becomes more common place, what we view as abuse today will be seen as no big deal later.

  56. After a really crazy week, I finally sat down and listened to the podcast! (Now, I just need to listen to the interview one!) 🙂

    The angry woman in the video was being completely ridiculous and unreasonable. I do believe that it’s important to at least try to learn some English, if one is working in a customer-service-related position in the U.S.A. wherein one constantly interacts with the public. However, this woman is expecting workers in a non-American-cuisine restaurant to speak and understand English perfectly, and then ranting and yelling at them when they fail her “standards” test. She is being unreasonable, and honestly, she seems a little crazy.

    On Michelle Carter: I was suicidal, for a brief period of time, after the breakup of my first relationship, when I was 15 years old. If someone like Michelle had been my girlfriend, it’s very possible that I would not be alive today. She needs to pay some kind of serious penalty– one that will give her real time to reflect on her part in this tragedy.

    On St. Paul’s command to obey one’s legal authorities: this command is clear, but from within the pages of Scripture itself, it is also not absolute. If the legal authorities are asking a Christian to perform a “legal duty” which requires said Christian to clearly violate a major tenet of his/her faith, the Bible does seem to say that *in those particular cases*, the believer should “obey God rather than man.” (I’m thinking, partially, here, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.)

    On Kim Davis: I lean toward thinking that if Kim Davis can’t, in good conscience, can’t fulfill the duties of her job, she should either resign or be willing to pay the legal price– even as I *also* think that the price of her going to jail was/is based on an unjust and unconstitutional ruling on marriage by SCOTUS. If I were in her place, I probably would have resigned. However, Rebecca Hamilton, a Democrat and an 18-year member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, has been doing quite a bit of writing on Kim’s situation, and Ms. Hamilton is bringing up some points that are giving me cause for pause. Here are the “money passages” from her latest piece on the subject:

    “I am going to repeat something I said earlier: The judge is over-stepping his authority. Mrs Davis is an elected official and his purview does not extend to telling elected officials whether or not they are performing their duties in a satisfactory manner.

    If an elected official does not perform their duties in a manner that the courts deem necessary, the courts have a certain latitude for redress, but this does not include summarily imprisoning the elected official. Perhaps the most clear-cut case of this in American history was when the Supreme Court ruled that the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from their hereditary lands to Indian Territory (what is now the State of Oklahoma) was unconstitutional, and President Andrew Jackson ignored the Court.

    Impeachment and the election process are how this nation has dealt with elected officials who do not perform their duties properly. When courts begin to imprison elected officials based on how they perform their duties, they are overstepping the separation powers which is one of the primary guarantors of our freedoms.”

    More here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2015/09/kim-davis-is-out-of-jail/

  57. I am hoping to address the “obeying god rather than man” concept soon. Jeremy Lundmark did an interesting podcast where he made arguments (some good ones) against some of the things we said in the Kim Davis discussion. Here is the link: http://jeremylundmark.com/episode-11-calvinist-hulk-smash-kim-davis-and-drunk-ex-pastors/. I’m actually hoping to get him on the phone so we can discuss.

    I (and everyone I’ve heard talk about this) don’t know the law well enough to comment on her jailing. I do know that it’s completely within the purview of a judge to jail someone who is in contempt of court. I’m sure there are a great many technicalities we’re not aware of. I do know that the people opposing her didn’t want her to be put in jail. It was the judge’s decision, who I understand is a Catholic.

    Like Jeremy points out in his podcast, and I agree with him, I’m sure on both sides, there are things that could have been done to avoid her being put in jail.

  58. Lol you act like its an obvious brut fact. You do realize that the case was decided in a split decision? Cheif justice roberts and other highly trained lawyers happen to agree with me. Likewise, despite the opinion of the ignorant masses, there has been a flury of scholarly legal debate on the Davis issue. She is perfectly within her legal rights to claim religious exemption. There sre both federal and state laws in play protecting her. She should never have been jailed.

    For all your agnosticism, im reality you have only traded ome set of dogmas for another 🙂

  59. The question is not whether religious people should be permitted to violate the law, but to what extent and in what way the law and our public institutions should accommodate people’s religious views. For example, those who decline to perform military service when drafted and claim conscientious-objector status are not trying to “break the law”, but rather are trying to comply with §6(j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act — that, too, is the law. Similarly, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, the law under which Hobby Lobby sued to defend its rights applies here. As the Supreme Court made clear, Hobby Lobby wasn’t breaking the law — the Obama administration was. Whether or not the supreme courts decision was correct or not is besides the point.

  60. The four Supreme Court Justices who stridently dissented, called it “illegitima[te],” “indefensible,” “dangerous for the rule of law,” “demeaning to the democratic process,” “a naked judicial claim to legislative — indeed, super-legislative — power,” “pretentious,” “egotistic,” a “judicial Putsch,” “deeply misguided,” a “usurp[ation of] the constitutional right of the people,” a “perhaps irremediable corruption of our legal culture’s conception of constitutional interpretation,” and an “extravagant conception of judicial supremacy.”

  62. Yet, in citizens united, bush v gore, and hobby lobby the dissenting opinions werent a fraction so polemical. Further, the hobby lobby case is obviously related to a constitutional issue…. religious freedom. The legal redefinition of marraige has absolutely *nothing* to do with the constitution.

  63. I’m sorry, I had no idea that the validity of a Supreme Court decision depended upon whether or not the tender fee fees of Anton Scalia were hurt.

    The decision was made under the Equal Protection clause. The laws and rights of one set of citizens applies to all. If you want to argue that the State should get out of marriage, you’d be on stronger footing than trying to claim that you and Ms. Davis have the personal right to nullify and defy the Constitution because you don’t like it.

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