Kim Davis

Canada is not a perfect country. The cost of living is crazy compared to the United States; the internet speed is pathetic and we pay through the nose for it; we can't (legally) get half the media or many of the products that Americans take for granted.
We have racism in spades up here, towards aboriginals instead of blacks, but it's here. I'll refrain from political comment since people are well aware of my views and polls suggest the current government has less than six weeks left in power.

No, Canada is not perfect. But we have a few things going for us. Gay people have been able to marry here since 2004 and next to nobody cares. Even if, hypothetically, Kim Davis was a Canadian, she would have been quickly and quietly fired. That's because most of our municipal officials are hired, not elected. Political parties simply do not exist at the municipal level here. I believe this to be a good thing.

Religion in Canada is a private matter, which in my opinion is just as it should be. It is remarkable to me as a Canadian that the freedom to practice your own religion, as guaranteed in the American First Amendment, so often magically morphs into the freedom to make OTHERS practice your religion.

My beefs with organized religion are every bit as well known as my political views, and I won't repeat them here either. Suffice it to say that what is supposed to be a unifying force is almost always instead divisive.

When Kim Davis first reared her head, I sighed. Rather loudly. It was inevitable--preordained, you might say--that someone would take her stand, go to jail (read: be martyred) for it, and come out famous. I didn't imagine she'd look quite so much like Annie Wilkes from Misery, mind you.

As has been discussed ad nauseam, the logical thing to do when your religious beliefs suddenly conflict with your job is to find another job. Many county clerks did so in the wake of Obergefell. One county clerk's office in Tennessee lost its entire staff. I respect these people who have stood by their convictions without inconveniencing others.

Not quite as much as I ridicule their convictions, of course. I do understand that beliefs inform actions, and that Kim Davis was acting in good faith, as it were, to refuse to issue marriage licenses in Rowan County, Kentucky. But she and those like her who are so ardently against same-sex marriage are incredibly selective with their Bibles:



And yes, I'm fully aware there are other verses condemning homosexuality. You may be interested to know that the word commonly translated as 'homosexual' in the New Testament -- the Greek arsenokoitai, which even LOOKS like 'ass-coitus', is a word coined by Paul, or someone pretending to be Paul...it doesn't appear in any Greek manuscripts before 1 Timothy (which may itself have been the work of a second-century forger). In any event, it's far from settled as to what arsenokoitai actually means. We do know that Jesus never uttered a word about gay marriage or gay sex, and the religion, last I looked, is called Christianity, not Paulianity. Paul never even met Jesus except in a dream, and he doesn't seem to know much about his Lord and Saviour. How ironic, though, that Paul should be credited with this verse:

Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. (Romans 13:2, NIV).

Kim Davis, take note.

 Exegesis is hard. Most Christians--most anythings--don't bother with critical examination of their holy texts: many don't even read them, beyond a few verses here and there.

You may wonder why I've made such an exhaustive study of this stuff. I'm not gay. But I have gay relatives and friends -- one of whom has been married almost as long as I have been. And it didn't escape my notice, back when I was a Christian, that many of that persuasion seem to be inordinately interested in three things: the beginning of the world, the end of the world, and sex, specifically gay sex. It seemed only fitting that I should determine my own opinion on these weighty matters.

(Briefly: I believe Genesis is a tribal creation myth, not universal; that neatly sidesteps all the facile 'who did Cain marry?' digs. I hold a Preterist view of Revelation, which is to say I believe its prophecies were fulfilled millennia ago. This last, Wikipedia informs me, is probably a product of my Catholic upbringing.)

And as to gay marriage?

There is no rational reason why two (or more, for that matter) consenting adults shouldn't be allowed to get married. There is no rational reason why anyone should feel threatened by same-sex marriage, or why the law that formerly made it illegal in the U.S.  was called the Defense of Marriage Act. There is no rational reason why Kim Davis -- four times married, adulterer, mother of twins conceived with her third husband while she was married to her first -- should be anyone's defender of the "sanctity" of marriage or anything else.

 But America is not a rational country. If it were, it wouldn't shrug off the weekly gun massacres, would it?

For better and worse, the United States of America is a nation based on emotion. "Energy in motion" is often a good thing, and always powerful: it has created the first global superpower, after all. But "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is a lovely sentiment until your happiness conflicts with somebody else's. Or worse, a whole class of somebody elses. Canada's unofficial motto is 'Peace, Order and Good Government", which is bland, boring...and rational. That's our national character.

Kim Davis has stirred a great deal of emotion, pro and con. I believe this was her intent, to a large degree. Stirring emotion in the United States can earn you a meal ticket for life, if you play your cards right. And she has, God love her (ahem). First, renounce your sinful ways (the public loves a redemption story). then take a moral stand on behalf of a group that believes it's persecuted because group membership is declining at the rate of more than one percentage point a year. (There is no authentic Christian persecution in a land where Christianity is still the dominant religion. There are only minorities seeking fair and equal treatment. But religious mindset is odd that way: it frames others as heathens and barbarians, and it manifests everywhere: politics, sports, musical tastes...)

At any rate, Davis has already become a celebrity.  Guest spots on Fox News await her, perhaps a full-fledged show. There will be at least one book written (probably ghostwritten) by her; there will be talk (if there hasn't been already) of her running for the Republican nomination in 2020. (I honestly haven't looked and don't care to). And she'll never have to work again, much less see any of those sinful gays. Uncloseted ones, at least.

Yep. Sure glad I live in Canada. Our government, as odious as I find it of late, at least hasn't seen fit to tie itself in knots over two people tying a knot.