Meditation 1240
That Misunderstood Freedom of Religion
by: John Tyrrell
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It is unfortunate that Kim Davis had to go to jail for refusing to do her job. But she could have avoided jail and still acted in accordance with her hypocritical* "Christian" conscience by resigning. Resignation would have been the moral course - a course followed by several other county clerks around the US who felt morally unable to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
But resignation from her $80,000 a year position was not an option Davis considered. Apparently she had 80,000 reasons not to take that path.
But the key to Davis's thinking and those who supported her in her fight was expressed by her husband:
“They want us to accept their beliefs and their ways. But they won’t accept our beliefs and our ways.”
And that nicely sums up the position of those who use "religious freedom" to impose their religious views on those who don't share their views. And it demonstrates the strange self-centered inability of these people to understand what freedom of religion really means.
Freedom of religion does not mean the right to use your job as a public official to force others to comply with your own religious views. Rather it means respecting the right of others to live their own lives in accordance with beliefs and ways which might be contrary to your own.
Note:
* I have no problem calling this woman a hypocrite - three times divorced, four times married, mother of children conceived while in her first marriage, fathered by her future third husband, and adopted by her second husband. I'm not sure which version of Christianity encourages this behavior. But of course, her "Christianity" has arranged forgiveness for her.
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