![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I know I'm not necessarily expected to comment or have an opinion on this, but...
I'm really tired of seeing over the top, demeaning posts about Kim Davis.
I mean, I have nothing but disdain for the politicians who are using her to rally their troops (especially the ones who keep forgetting to get permissions from musicians before using their work as fight/victory songs). They are manipulative, spiritually ugly people fomenting hate and divisiveness.
But fundamentally, Kim Davis was doing something called passive resistance. And if you want to politely refuse to do something that's morally objectionable to you and go to jail for it, I think that's an ok way to protest something. Much better than yelling at people, or shooting them.
A lot of people are talking about how she swore to uphold the constitution when she was elected, and follow the laws. And from the perspective of those of us who ALWAYS believed that the constitution's guarantee of equal rights should be interpreted as extending to all people in the country, for all aspects of the law including marriage, it looks like she then refused to do that - refused to do her job.
But it doesn't take much stretching to understand that from her perspective, interpretation of the law and the constitution *changed* while she was in office, and was not the same as what she swore to abide by and protect.
I see people dissecting her life, suggesting that because she has been married and divorced multiple times it is hypocritical of her to treat marriage as something special. But I've been divorced and remarried, and I don't think that has damaged either my ability or my right to define my own opinion of marriage as an institution.
People have criticized her religious views because she only became devoted to them recently, but I think, if someone has had such a shitty life, and they find a doctrine that seems to improve things significantly, it only makes sense that they would try to adhere to that doctrine firmly. A relatively new faith probably even more than any other, if it seems to have saved them from a worse situation. Sometimes people struggle to find a path, and something that can guide you helps.
I hold the people who teach and spread that doctrine responsible for including the message that behavior I see as loving and fine is somehow morally deviant and inappropriate. I resent that they teach that, and I disagree with their ethics. I know plenty of people who believe themselves to be devout Christians who don't interpret the texts of their faith that way, and I have studied the text and discussions of it and found the arguments against homosexuality based on it weak or nonexistent, myself (especially once you look at the original text, before it was translated).
But I don't think that's a valid reason to hate on someone's hair style or personal lack of beauty. If camera crews descended on you some random day at work, look beautiful you might not, either.
And "furthermore, she ugly!" does not really forward the cause of civil rights.
Please, give it a break.
I mean, I have nothing but disdain for the politicians who are using her to rally their troops (especially the ones who keep forgetting to get permissions from musicians before using their work as fight/victory songs). They are manipulative, spiritually ugly people fomenting hate and divisiveness.
But fundamentally, Kim Davis was doing something called passive resistance. And if you want to politely refuse to do something that's morally objectionable to you and go to jail for it, I think that's an ok way to protest something. Much better than yelling at people, or shooting them.
A lot of people are talking about how she swore to uphold the constitution when she was elected, and follow the laws. And from the perspective of those of us who ALWAYS believed that the constitution's guarantee of equal rights should be interpreted as extending to all people in the country, for all aspects of the law including marriage, it looks like she then refused to do that - refused to do her job.
But it doesn't take much stretching to understand that from her perspective, interpretation of the law and the constitution *changed* while she was in office, and was not the same as what she swore to abide by and protect.
I see people dissecting her life, suggesting that because she has been married and divorced multiple times it is hypocritical of her to treat marriage as something special. But I've been divorced and remarried, and I don't think that has damaged either my ability or my right to define my own opinion of marriage as an institution.
People have criticized her religious views because she only became devoted to them recently, but I think, if someone has had such a shitty life, and they find a doctrine that seems to improve things significantly, it only makes sense that they would try to adhere to that doctrine firmly. A relatively new faith probably even more than any other, if it seems to have saved them from a worse situation. Sometimes people struggle to find a path, and something that can guide you helps.
I hold the people who teach and spread that doctrine responsible for including the message that behavior I see as loving and fine is somehow morally deviant and inappropriate. I resent that they teach that, and I disagree with their ethics. I know plenty of people who believe themselves to be devout Christians who don't interpret the texts of their faith that way, and I have studied the text and discussions of it and found the arguments against homosexuality based on it weak or nonexistent, myself (especially once you look at the original text, before it was translated).
But I don't think that's a valid reason to hate on someone's hair style or personal lack of beauty. If camera crews descended on you some random day at work, look beautiful you might not, either.
And "furthermore, she ugly!" does not really forward the cause of civil rights.
Please, give it a break.
no subject
I think Davis is wrong and bigoted, but she presumably does not see herself in that way.
I personally think that morally, she ought to have resigned and if necessary, made clear that she did so on a point of principle.