Christian Martyrs

[Animavore]

[Seth]

^^^ You forgot to explain how the issuing of marriage licenses is related to Christian martyrdom.

Or maybe you meant to post your wall of words in one of the at least 50 threads about marriage and somehow missed all of them.

Um, the OP is about a county clerk who is being jailed for refusing to issue MARRIAGE LICENSES.

Is that enough of a clue for you?

[Seth]

But marriage is, and always has been, a religious, spiritual and/or metaphysical bonding between two individuals.

How little you know about anything.
What you described is a relationship.
Marriage is about legal rights and responsibilities. The two are very different. And people have indulged in one or the other or both for thousands of years.
They understood the difference two thousand years ago.

You seem to be a bit slow getting there.

I disagree. Marriage is much more than a "relationship," it is, and always has been, both in theology and law, a melding of two persons into one. In law, being "married" means precisely that both persons are considered one and the same, each having the same rights and obligations as the other.

In religion, which preceded marriage license laws by at least 5000 years, marriage is a religious rite which makes two into one in a religious and metaphysical bonding that, in many religions, is unbreakable and lasts until "death do (them) part."

Government interference in the marriage relation is a much more recent than marriage itself, and even in Europe the authority of the King to sanction a marriage or refuse to do so was limited to the nobility and was intended to give the King power over the right of succession and inheritance, which was part of his authority to control the SECULAR aspects of society. As Henry VIII demonstrates, even kings had to abide by church authority and doctrine in both marrying and dissolving marriages...in his case by ginning-up reasons to shorten his wives by a head. He couldn't get the Catholic church to annul his marriage to Anne Boleyn, so he had her convicted of treason so he could "legally" marry Jane Seymour.

And in the US, government interference with religious practice is constitutionally limited.

[cronus]

Marriage is about contracts and lawyers and divorce. (or avoiding divorce in fear of consequences...). Don't need theology to explain that gem of self-deceit called marriage Seth. A man of the world like you should know that.

[cronus]

Marriage is about contracts and lawyers and divorce. (or avoiding divorce in fear of consequences...). Don't need theology to explain that gem of self-deceit called marriage Seth. A man of the world like you should know that.

[Hermit]

^^^ You forgot to explain how the issuing of marriage licenses is related to Christian martyrdom.

Or maybe you meant to post your wall of words in one of the at least 50 threads about marriage and somehow missed all of them.

Um, the OP is about a county clerk who is being jailed for refusing to issue MARRIAGE LICENSES.

Is that enough of a clue for you?

Certainly is, Seth. The clue is highlighted in big, friendly red letters by yourself. Davis was gaoled for refusing to issuing marriage licenses, not her religious beliefs. Davis was elected to the job as the Town Clerk. That means she cannot be fired. So the District Court has ordered her to do her job. She refused. That constitutes contempt of court. She was gaoled for refusing to do her job.

That by no means indicates martyrdom. Nobody asked her to ignore her religious beliefs. If she can't do what she was elected to do, she does not have to jettison any of her beliefs. She is free to find employment where her beliefs are not compromised by her duties, and nobody will give a fuck about what goes on in her mind.

[JimC]

[Seth]

Marriage is about contracts and lawyers and divorce. (or avoiding divorce in fear of consequences...). Don't need theology to explain that gem of self-deceit called marriage Seth. A man of the world like you should know that.

Er, my point is that marriage may be about such things NOW, but that is only because, and is an artifact of unconstitutional government interference in the religious/spiritual/metaphysical act of "getting married."

All the legal stuff relies upon a circular logic: You can't get married without a state-issued license because the state has usurped the traditional role of religion in marriage and made it malum prohibitum unlawful to be married without first obtaining permission from the state. The purpose of requiring state permission to marry is rooted in two things: in the deep past it was related to inheritance and descent of title for the nobility (nobody gave a damn about the serfs, they didn't have to get a license); and overt racism whereby the state claims that authority in order to control who may marry whom to prevent, explicitly, interracial (or in some cases inter-caste) mingling of superior and inferior blood.

In the past, at least in Christian nations (which was all of Europe and everywhere European domination and imperialism reigned) for other than the nobility, marriage was a strictly church function and the authority to marry, and the rules of marriage were dictated by, for the most part, the Catholic Church, for millennia.

In Islam it was largely the same, although it's a bit less clear because Islam is both a religion and a system of government, which makes separating church and state nearly impossible.

But in the Western world, Christian marriage, and even Jewish marriage and the rules pertaining thereto were pretty strictly religious in nature. Governments only began inserting themselves into the marital relationship when supposed state interests began to appear, such as protections of children, division of assets in divorce (which for a long, long time was simply not possible at all) and inheritance upon death of the spouse.

Those aspects of regulation of the intimate domestic relationship are still largely necessary and reasonable, but such regulations do not in and of themselves justify or require a license to marry from the state as a pre-condition of state regulation of domestic affairs. This has been amply proven by the many domestic relationship laws that have been passed in the absence of gay marriage rights.

The issues of law surrounding domestic relationships are, and should be held to be strictly civil in nature and the role of the state in such matters should be of recording and when necessary adjudicating contractual disputes brought by one or both parties to a domestic union contract, with the added reasonable authority of requiring government-mandated provisions to all such domestic contracts with respect to any children that may be or become part of that family, in its role as guardian ad litem of minor children when the parents are not acting responsibly.

"Marriage" however, is and will remain something not really controlled or controllable by civil law because it is only incidentally a legal relationship, it is primarily a physical, spiritual, emotional and metaphysical relationship that government has no business interfering with, much less presuming to "license" (which is to say authorize or not authorize).

Let's leave "marriage" to the individuals and let them decide what sort of domestic contractual arrangement they wish to follow during that relationship and demand only that they put it in writing and record it with the county clerk and authorize the county courts to adjudicate any such civil disputes as may arise.

That would allow, for example, a fixed-term contractual domestic relationship between two persons who don't want to be "married" but who want to have and raise children together to their majority, at which point the domestic relationship would be automatically dissolved and the assets of the relationship divided according to the terms of the contract.

It would also allow two or more persons who wish to have a domestic relationship NOT including sexual relationships, but only social and economic relationships, such as two friends of the same sex who wish to combine their incomes and assets for their mutual benefit but who may decide to "marry" others. This would deal with rights of survivorship and inheritance and would give the partners to the contract rights including medical oversight and custodial care of one or the other person, things which normally accrue automatically to a "spouse" in a legally-authorized "marriage."

A host of problems can be avoided by getting the term "marriage" and "spouse" out of all federal and state statutes.

[Seth]

^^^ You forgot to explain how the issuing of marriage licenses is related to Christian martyrdom.

Or maybe you meant to post your wall of words in one of the at least 50 threads about marriage and somehow missed all of them.

Um, the OP is about a county clerk who is being jailed for refusing to issue MARRIAGE LICENSES.

Is that enough of a clue for you?

Certainly is, Seth. The clue is highlighted in big, friendly red letters by yourself. Davis was gaoled for refusing to issuing marriage licenses, not her religious beliefs. Davis was elected to the job as the Town Clerk. That means she cannot be fired. So the District Court has ordered her to do her job. She refused. That constitutes contempt of court. She was gaoled for refusing to do her job.

She's an elected official. As an elected official the most pertinent question is whether the court has the authority to compel her to do anything, especially something she does not, as an elected official, believe she has authority to do.

That by no means indicates martyrdom. Nobody asked her to ignore her religious beliefs.

Of course they are.

If she can't do what she was elected to do, she does not have to jettison any of her beliefs. She is free to find employment where her beliefs are not compromised by her duties, and nobody will give a fuck about what goes on in her mind.

The key here is that she is an elected official. She is NOT an "employee" who can be hired or fired or even "supervised" by anyone when it comes to how she performs the authorities of her office. The point being made by her, and by others with legal understanding, is that because she was elected to office, it is presumed in law that she is representing the will of the electorate in this matter. It is within the authority of the electorate to recall her or elect someone else in her place at the next or a special election, but just as the Supreme Court cannot throw the President into jail for contempt of court for refusing to enforce, by way of example, the nation's immigration laws, a local judge has no legitimate authority to "become" the County Clerk and determine how an elected official must perform. So long as she does not commit a criminal act, which refusing to issue a marriage license is not, she cannot be arrested or ordered to do anything by a court because the courts have no power to substitute their judgement for the judgment of elected officials. This concept applies from the county clerk level right up to the Congress and has been repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional arrogation of extra-judicial power by the courts if and when they do it.

Again, because she was duly elected by the voters of her county, in law she is presumed to be acting in their interests and at their will absent action by the voters to recall or replace her, something they have not done.

[mistermack]

the state has usurped the traditional role of religion in marriage

Religion WAS the state historically.
Popes had more power than kings.

The only difference between marriage and living together is the legal difference.
Very often, the mistress was historically the one who was the "real love" partner. The wife was the legal partner. Just like Charles and Diana.

Children born outside of marriage are "illegitimate" . Those born inside marriage are legitimate.
It's all legal stuff.

And metaphysics is imaginary, as are "spiritual" matters. There are no spirits. And emotional bonds are formed by physical electrical circuits in brains, not "metaphysical" anything.

[Hermit]

She's an elected official. As an elected official the most pertinent question is whether the court has the authority to compel her to do anything, especially something she does not, as an elected official, believe she has authority to do.

Kim Davis was an elected official, yes, but she was not given the right to decide which of her prescribed duties she could refuse to fulfill. One of those duties of the office she was elected to perform was to issue marriage certificates to all couples who are legally entitled to one. Same-sex couples are not excluded at law for such entitlement, but she refused to issue marriage certificates to them. That is a clear dereliction of duty. Being elected, she could not be fired, so the District Court ordered her to do her job. Davis persisted with her refusal. That brought her into contempt of court. Contempt of court is a gaolable offence. Instead of running foul of a court order she could have appealed the court's decision or resigned. She did neither. So she was gaoled. As I said before, she was not gaoled for her religious beliefs. She was gaoled for contempt of court, i.e. for her refusal obey the court order to do the job she was elected to do.

[mistermack]

Davis continued to defy Bunning's court order after the Supreme Court upheld it.[6][34] When several couples sought to obtain marriage licenses, Davis turned them away, saying she was acting "under God's authority".[7][8] Some sources questioned whether Davis, having been married four times, was acting hypocritically in the "application of her beliefs".[35][36][37][38]

That says it all.

Where in the bible does Jesus say it's ok to keep getting divorced and remarrying?

[Svartalf]

she on ly recently found God and was born again, the rest is "youthful mistakes"

[Animavore]

Ah! The Pope - still a bigot.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34398904

[Seth]

the state has usurped the traditional role of religion in marriage

Religion WAS the state historically.
Popes had more power than kings.

Yup, and God had more power than Popes.

The only difference between marriage and living together is the legal difference.

Not really. "Living together" isn't a bonding, it's just cohabitation. Marriage, you see, is much more than just living together and always has been. It involves oaths and promises that (spiritually speaking) last a lifetime, whereas "living together" is something two people do until they don't want to do so anymore.

Very often, the mistress was historically the one who was the "real love" partner. The wife was the legal partner. Just like Charles and Diana.

And that's why the conflation of marriage and the legal domestic relationship by government is a bad idea.

Children born outside of marriage are "illegitimate" . Those born inside marriage are legitimate.

According to whom? The King? According to the parents the child is the child. You make my point for me.

It's all legal stuff.

No, it's only legal stuff because the government wants it to be legal stuff, which is my point. The government has (at least in the US) unconstitutionally intruded on a very, very private and personal matter between two people who choose to marry and become one entity by imposing all sorts of silly legal conditions and requirements that rightfully have nothing to do with the personal relationship. Therefore the government should be driven OUT of the business of regulating "marriage" and put in its proper place of recording and adjudicating private contracts between persons respecting their voluntarily entered into domestic and financial relationships.

And metaphysics is imaginary, as are "spiritual" matters. There are no spirits.

What is your critically robust scientific evidence supporting your claim that "there are no spirits?" By "metaphysical" I mean that the emotional and physical bond between two (or more) persons that transcends scientific examination or quantification. Science cannot explain love, and it shouldn't even try.

And emotional bonds are formed by physical electrical circuits in brains, not "metaphysical" anything.

No, they are formed IN neuronal circuits, not necessarily BY them. But even if they are formed "by" such circuits, science has no explanation for how or why that thing called "love" occurs. Indeed, science cannot (at the moment) even explain consciousness or thought.

But that doesn't really matter, because even if it could, that would not do what you want it to do, which is to reduce human emotion, love, bonding and other metaphysical aspects of human consciousness, thought, belief and feelings down to a cold "scientific" calculus merely in order to try to win a point in a debate about whether or not the government should be allowed to license marriages.

It's a bit odd that you, the liberal one, seem to be arguing against getting government out of "marriage" and putting it in its proper place as a steward of records, whereas I, the "conservative" one am arguing for the freedom to marry whomever one pleases without government let or hindrance?

Why is it that you (implicitly) believe that government should continue to "license" marriage? Are you a homophobe who doesn't want gays to marry? Are you a racist who doesn't want blacks and whites to intermarry?

Inquiring minds want to know...