Dear Ms. Davis,
I hear you’ve been released from jail. I’m glad to hear it. When I first heard that you, an official clerk, had been put in jail for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses in Kentucky, I thought, that’s a shame, because I thought you could have done more, and by “more” I really mean, better. This being the case, I want you to know, I didn’t judge you then and I don’t judge you now for holding up your religious freedom flag. Really. I don’t. I do back the judge who locked you up for breaking the law. Not that you care about what I think, but the judge got it right when he put you behind bars. I’ve actually stayed up at night wondering what the judge might have thought about it all. For all I know you and the judge were both born and raised in the same town. You had access to the same local news stations and were exposed to the same preachers and teachers. And we all know, no one can deny it, that you, the judge, and I, we all read the same Bible. So maybe the judge agreed with you. It’s not improbable. Maybe, had he had to issue the marriage license instead of you… Well, I guess we’ll never know. He had a job to do and like it or not, he did it.
I know, how well one does their job can be a matter of opinion. How well did the judge judge? How well have you done your job? How well am I doing mine? All opinions being equal, when the judge ordered you to jail, did you feel like the law had failed you? Should the law be given the power to force us to do something that puts us against our religion and faith, something that splits our heart down the middle? I mean, forgive me my questions, I know nothing essential about you, and if for no other reason than this, I shouldn’t assume to understand your reasons for doing what you have done. But if you and your history are anything like me and mine, than you love your Bible. It’s God’s very word to you. The first and last authority on everything that matters. Your grandmother gave it to you perhaps, inscribed with Acts 16:31 on the inside cover: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Like I said, I know diddly-squat about you. Like, when, where, why do you believe? Is it ever hard for you to believe in Jesus? Nothing says that your family has to believe like you do, or even at all, to be saved; it’s just you that has to believe. Is that how it’s gone for you and your loved ones?
Sorry. Here I go again wanting details when details may seem unnecessary to you. There was a time not too long ago when they did to me. It’s not that I was ignorant of the details, like I didn’t know what might be in them—the possibilities, the alternatives, the joyful surprises. I knew not to ignore the meaning between the lines, and I’ve always maintained a teachable spirit. But still, had I held your position, I too would have said no to same-sex marriage for the Bible tells me so, and crowds of people with their paper crosses would have cheered my name, while Eye of the Tiger played on a loop.
Then one random day, I was taken down Apostle Paul style. Dropped to the ground and blinded by the light of Jesus, I met someone who could put a cup of cold water in the hands of a thirsty person with the best of them. And isn’t this what the Bible according to Jesus comes down to? “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” They believed, they acted kindly, they testified to a holy calling, they told me they got it all from reading the Bible, and they were gay.
So here’s what I’ve come to decide: should I ever feel I am being forced by the law to do something that cuts me to the heart, it’s not an attack on my religious freedom (for examples of attacks on religious freedom see black churches burning; see Jews being carted off by the thousands, also to burn; see ISIS; think of being told that your job is to issue same-sex marriage licenses and if you don’t like it, tough luck, under penalty of death you can’t quit your job; think genocide, extermination, whole-scale degradation.) Rather, what you felt an attack on would, I think, be more appropriately called, your religion, for which there is no protection under the law.
Now I realize this may come as a disappointment to you, that the law which gives a same-sex couple the right to receive a marriage license doesn’t give you any right on the basis of religion to deny them that right. But at no point in our nation’s history has the law ever protected religion. If I may be so bold, at no point in our history do we ever want it to. For as soon as the law takes to respecting religion and faith on individual bases, we have weaponized religion and faith. Mike Huckabee claims that “we shouldn’t criminalize the Christian faith,” but I think he is missing the greater danger, that the Christian faith can be criminal. Criminal when its people know how to be right only by making others look wrong.
Ms. Davis, I am not at all disappointed by your loss of religious freedom. From what I can see, you haven’t actually lost a thing. What disappoints me is our pitiful take on religious freedom today. Truly, what does it say about you and the excellence of your religious freedom when the best you can do with it is to keep two people from getting married? Do you even know the two people? Beyond the fact that they’re gay and want to get married, do you know anything else about them? You probably don’t. But I wonder, if you did, would it change your mind, or at least make you care a bit more about them and their marriage license? Might I suggest you sit down over a cup of coffee with them? My guess is, they’ll be glad to buy. And then, consider more carefully the thousands upon thousands of people who are fleeing their countries today for safer refuge elsewhere and ask yourself if, for the sake of these and all who are like them, you couldn’t find a better use for your religious freedom? Because your decision not to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples doesn’t make you a champion for the word of God. All it’s done is to prove that you are not a very good employee for the state of Kentucky.
I am glad to hear you are out of jail. I really do believe we can do more, and do better, because remember, we read the same Bible, and while I haven’t read anywhere that we get to decide who should and should not get a marriage license, I have read that we ought to seek understanding, practice compassion, bless our enemies, and let God take care of the rest.
Sincerely,
A Household Member
PleaseGrace 