Bill Press: Davis no hero for religion

Five days in jail did nothing to change her mind. A defiant Kim Davis, Kentucky’s Rowan County clerk, returned to work Monday vowing to continue her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and declaring that any such licenses granted by deputy clerks in her absence are invalid.

Speaking to reporters as she arrived for work, Davis repeated her call for the governor or state Legislature to grant her a special “religious accommodation” so she would not have to approve the marriage licenses, which she says violate her religious beliefs, a request immediately endorsed by GOP presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, who have hailed Davis as a religious hero. Which she is not. 

{mosads}Davis no more deserves a free pass to break the law on same-sex marriage than you or I deserve a free pass to break the law on speed limits. 

No, Davis is no religious hero. She’s a confused, low-level elected official who doesn’t understand either the law or the Bible. And Santorum and Huckabee are just two losing politicians, pretending to defend “religious liberty” in order to resuscitate their dying presidential campaigns.

On the law, there’s no question: Decisions by the Supreme Court are the law of the land, which all Americans, no matter what their religious affiliation, are bound to obey. That’s established law, first decreed by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803’s Marbury v. Madison. 

Nobody’s interfering with Davis’s religious freedom. As a Christian, she may believe that same-sex marriage is morally wrong. Nonetheless, not only is she, as an American, obliged to obey the law, as an elected official who is paid $80,000 a year, she must either do her job of issuing marriage licenses to all couples who apply or she must resign — or go back to jail. 

Davis is equally wrong about the Bible. True, after telling the story of Adam and Eve, the author of Genesis writes: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). But nowhere in the Bible, either Old or New Testament, is there any mandate that marriage be only between a man and woman. 

Indeed, those turning to the Bible for the perfect marriage formula could just as easily conclude that polygamy was the way to go. Abraham, Isaac and David each had multiple wives. Solomon was said to have had 700 wives, plus 300 concubines.

The Bible may be silent on same-sex marriage, but it’s not silent on divorce. Jesus says: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:7-12). How does thrice-divorced Davis reconcile that prohibition with her strict Christian faith?

The story of Kim Davis is not a case of religious liberty. It’s a case of woeful ignorance of the law, political expediency and selective application of the Bible. 

Press is host of “The Bill Press Show” on Free Speech TV and author of “The Obama Hate Machine.”