Kim Davis

Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky has been jailed on contempt of court charges for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Her staff has been directed to issue the licenses in her absence. Ms. Davis has said she cannot issue the licenses because it would violate G-d’s law, but she does not work for G-d. She works for the people of Kentucky and is obliged to follow the laws of the state of Kentucky and the United States.

It is not a matter of religious freedom. Ms. Davis is free to follow such religious beliefs as she chooses in her own life. She does not work for a religious organization, and if she did, she would not be subject to the same rules. A minister of a church cannot be compelled to marry a couple if doing so would violate her or his religion. A public official is obliged to serve all the public, based on the law. Since the Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage, it is now legal in all states of the United States.

Ms. Davis has appealed the rulings requiring her to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear her appeal. That means that she could not find three of the nine justices who would support her plea for an appeal. On another case, Justice Scalia, one of the most conservative justices, made it clear that public officials are bound to follow the law – not their “conscience”.

We are in fact a nation of laws, and those laws are based in the constitution of the United States, not in the Bible. Certainly in her private life, Ms. Davis has the right to practice her religious beliefs, as she sees fit. In her role as a public official, she must check her personal beliefs at the door to the office. If she feels so strongly that issuing those licenses would violate her personal moral principles, then she is obliged to resign her position.

Unfortunately, as an elected official, she cannot be removed from office except through impeachment or recall, both of which are difficult and slow. Now because of her refusal, she has been jailed. I’m sorry it was necessary to jail her, but I suspect the judge was correct that fines would not have been sufficient to force her to correct her behavior. There are too many right wing “Christians” who would financially support her continued intransigence.

No doubt there will be those who claim it is part of a ‘war on religion’, yet no one is being forced to change or give up their religion. Ms. Davis is merely being told that as a public official she is obliged to follow the law, and the law allows marriage between members of the same sex. Again, where and how she worships, or even whether she worships, and how she conducts her private life are not at issue. The issue is her performance as a public official and her refusal to follow the law.

I suspect another reason the judge jailed her was that two other county clerks were making noises like they also would refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Perhaps the threat of jail will be enough to soften their resolve and compel them to comply with the law. In the meantime, the “Christian” right wing has a “martyr” for their cause, whom I sure they will hail and praise at some length. She has done nothing praiseworthy – nothing whatsoever.

Missouri School Locker Room Transgender Issue

There has been a stir in one Missouri school about a transgender young woman changing in the women’s locker room. Her presence made some of the cisgender females uncomfortable and about 200 walked out in protest. This isn’t the first time that transwomen have been involved in locker room problems. I suspect  that in all cases it has been pre-op transwomen, since post-op would tend to go unnoticed.

For the benefit of all concerned, there needs to be some privacy, which you have in most bathrooms, but not necessarily in locker rooms. The transgender student should NOT be forced to change in the locker room of their birth gender. For a pre-op transwoman, I have some sympathy though for those women who are uncomfortable seeing a penis in the women's locker room. I'm sure the student is NO danger to her fellow students, but I understand their discomfort in an open locker room environment. What kind of accommodation can be made to protect the transgender, make them feel comfortable, yet not make the cisgender uncomfortable?

Can we easily create a situation where we have more privacy for all students in the locker room? I know that would have some cost, but to me would be one solution. Given that physical education classes are mandatory for many years of school, could we have some alternatives for both transgender and cisgender that don’t require changing in an open locker room?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think many of the students are so much motivated by hatred as fear of that which they don't understand. It becomes an education process and allaying their fears. Simply dismissing them out of hand gets us nowhere positive. The student is indeed brave, and will need to continue to be brave in the face of the unreasoning fear by some of her fellow students. She must also be protected from abuse and bullying. Sensitivity training for all the students might be a good start. Teach them what transgender is really all about. Teach them acceptance and teach them accommodation.

Living the life of luxury at government expense?

I saw a Facebook meme about how one should game the system to collect all sorts of government benefits and live the high life.

Seriously, people?

If you are poor - if you have been poor - if you have been forced to get government assistance to live, then you know damned well, you aren't living a life of luxury. At best, these benefits keep you from dying, starving, or living on the streets. In many cases, there are maximum time limits during which you can collect these benefits. In all cases, the amount of the benefits is pretty meager. A few hundred dollars a month in food stamps, perhaps a few hundred dollars a month in TANF, perhaps you get rent subsidies. None, or even the total of all is at best barely enough to get by. In many cases the amounts you get are set based on where you live, since they are funded by block grants to the states, and a lot of eligibility is based on what that state allows.

Medicaid will keep you from dying, if you qualify, and if you can get on the program. Again, the states have considerable control over who can even get on, and when the federal government expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, some states refused the funds and the expansion. So we have folks sick and sometimes dying, who cannot get help even under Medicaid. Most states have more people who qualify and want to get on than the funds available to pay for them.
The meme also seems to imply that the reason we are running federal government deficits is because of benefits to poor people.

Bullshit. Repeat, bullshit.

We spend billions of dollars on subsidies to already profitable oil companies. We spend billions on agricultural subsidies to huge and very profitable agricultural conglomerates. We spend billions more to subsidize mega-corporations for import and export. We spend billions on military weapons which in some cases the military says it does not even need. We give billions in tax breaks to hedge fund managers, who have zero money at risk and make millions upon millions for their activities. Yet we are supposed to believe that assistance for poor people is breaking our budget?

What we have is some very wealthy people, who are also very greedy, who spend millions to convince average working people that "lazy" poor people are getting things at their expense. All this is so the wealthy folks can have even more billions, through tax cuts. We indeed have a class of "takers" in this country, but it is not the poor - it is the rich.