My take on the Kim Davis situation

I’ve been reluctant to chime in on the whole Kim Davis situation – in large part because I’ve struggled personally to decide exactly what to think of this situation. And even after thinking and praying about this for a couple of weeks now, I will admit I still don’t have all the answers. Let me also acknowledge before I share my thoughts that I know that others who I respect greatly will disagree with some of my conclusions – I know that because I’ve read or heard some of them already. I’m OK with that because this is certainly one of those “gray areas” where we can disagree and still respect and love each other. I also want to apologize up front for the length of this post, but I couldn’t really find anything I could cut out and still make a coherent, comprehensive argument.

In the unlikely event that you don’t know who Kim Davis is, she is the Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Let me say first of all that I do admire Kim for standing up for her Biblical convictions. However, I do question whether the way she has chosen to do that is appropriate. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen many people cite several Biblical texts to support Kim’s actions. The most commonly used passages seem to be the Hebrew midwives who refused Pharaoh’s order to kill the Hebrew males when they were born (Exodus 1), and Daniel and his three friends in Babylon. For the reasons I’ll expand on more in a moment, I’m not sure that any of these situations are actually as relevant to Mrs. Davis’ situation as some have claimed.

The Hebrew midwives were not government employees. They had not taken an oath that required them to carry out Pharaoh’s edicts. So it was certainly appropriate that as individuals, they chose to follow God and not Pharaoh.

What about Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah – Daniel’s three friends that we all know better by their Babylonian names – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? When they petitioned the chief eunuch regarding the eating of foods that would have defiled them (Daniel 1), they were not government employees either. So once again their decision to follow God rather than man’s laws was appropriate and noble.

But by the time they are faced with a decision of whether or not to bow down to the image King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, they were government officials (Daniel 3). But when they failed to bow down to that image, they did that as individuals and not as government officials who had taken an oath to carry out the king’s commands. But even more important, they understood that their decision was going to subject them to the consequences imposed by the king and they willingly submitted themselves to the fiery furnace. They never claimed that as government officials they had the right to either compel or prevent others from following the law of the land.

Probably the closest parallel would be in Daniel 6. Daniel is clearly a government official here, but when the king issues an order to quit praying to his God, he refuses to submit to that order. I believe it is clear that Daniel made that decision as an individual, and not in his role as a government official. And he did that knowing that the consequence for his actions is that he would be thrown into the lion’s den, which by the way also meant he would lose his government job. Like his three friends, he never used his position as a government official to try and compel the decisions of other individuals. He just chose to obey God himself.

Kim Davis is an elected official who has taken an oath to carry out the law. She did not take an oath to merely carry out the laws with which she agrees. (As a side note, I agree there is a lot of hypocrisy among with those who claim that Mrs. Davis has an obligation to carry out the law, but who are quick to defend other elected officials who only enforce the laws with which they agree. But their hypocrisy is really irrelevant here).

While, like many others, I am deeply troubled by the fact that five unelected judges have effectively made a new law which overturns our country’s long history of upholding a Biblical model of marriage, the fact is that is now the law of the land regardless of what the Kentucky legislature or any other elected body has or has not done. So those who argue that she is right not to issue marriage licenses are essentially claiming that she is committing the lesser of two sins – i.e. that it would be a “worse sin” to “participate” in a homosexual marriage by issuing a marriage license than it would be to sin by violating the oath she has taken to uphold the law. The problem with that argument, in my view, is that I can’t find even one place in the Bible where we are instructed to choose between sins and pick the “lesser” one. So it seems to me that there must be a way for Mrs. Davis to act in a manner that would not require her to sin at all.

The recent Supreme Court decision does not require Mrs. Davis to directly participate in sin by entering into a homosexual marriage herself. That would certainly be much more akin to the Biblical examples I’ve cited in which people were commanded to personally engage in actions that violated God’s commands. And if she genuinely believes that by issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples she would somehow be participating in evil (I would probably agree with her there), then she is entitled to resign her government position and avoid any sin whatsoever.

God never promised that following Him would be easy. Nor did He promise that following Him won’t mean that we have to make difficult decisions and even have to give up some things – like a job – in order to do that.