Not all religious liberty advocates are lining up behind Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue a marriage license to a same sex couple.
That might come as a surprise to a few of the Republican presidential candidates who have made religious liberty a focal point of their campaign, and who, in recent days, have used Davis and her plight to promote this aspect of their candidacies to socially conservative GOP primary voters. Still, there are some dissenters among socially conservative, religious liberty activists, and Carmen Fowler LaBerge is among them.
Fowler LaBerge, a staunch opponent of government-sanctioned same sex marriage, is a leader with the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative offshoot of the Presbyterian Church USA that formed over concerns that the PCUSA had veered too liberal. But she believes Davis a “bad poster child” for religious liberty and said the clerk’s actions were a poor platform from which to fight the Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
“In order for your religious liberty to be infringed, it either has to be an infringement on the one side of the establishment clause [of the First Amendment,] which it clearly is not, or it has to be the government forcing you to do something as a private citizen that goes against your closely held religious beliefs,” Fowler LaBerge told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “The government cannot come and force me to sign something; but it’s [Davis’] job to sign these things.”
“That’s where I find myself wondering if this is the right thing for Christians to be defending this particular individual,” Fowler LaBerge continued. “Are the Christians who are really concerned about Kim Davis equally concerned about the Muslim flight attendant who does not want to serve drinks because it goes against her closely held religious beliefs?”
Fowler LaBerge was referring to Charee Stanley, who filed a complaint with Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. The flight attendant said ExpressJet suspended because she refused to serve alcoholic beverages to passengers on the grounds that doing so would violate her Islamic faith.
Davis, a Democrat and the elected county clerk of Rowan County, Ky., ended up in jail on contempt of court charges after refusing to honor the Supreme Court’s decision that declared same-sex marriage a Constitutional right in all 50 states. Many opponents of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision have come to Davis’ defense, calling her a warrior for religious liberty as guaranteed under the First Amendment.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, two GOP presidential contenders, traveled to Kentucky on Tuesday to meet with Davis — who has since been released from jail — and rally support for religious liberty. Other Republican 2016 candidates also have voiced support for Davis, saying that its an ominous sign for religious liberty when the government forces a county clerk to issue marriage license to same sex couples, even if doing so violates their faith.
“Let Kim go, but if you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that’s how freedom is best served,” Huckabee said, according to CNN, during a rally he hosted for Davis. “Because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading in this country. But I want you to know I’m willing to spend the next eight years in jail, but I’m not willing to spend the next years in tyranny under people who think they can take our freedom and conscience away.”
Fowler LaBerge disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and, as she discussed with the Examiner in late June, is concerned about its impact on Americans and their ability to live according to the tenants of their religious convictions. But she said Davis and her resistance are flawed vehicles to wage this battle, in part because of Davis’ marital history.
The clerk is on her fourth marriage, and Fowler LaBerge said her lifestyle could run afoul of certain strict readings of the scriptures. Fowler LaBerge did call Davis’ jailing excessive, and wondered if opponents of her actions were hoping to provoke a conflict.
“If I were going to sit down with my evangelical friends,” she said, “I’d argue, are you going to say that the clerk, whoever it was, not who signed her first marriage license, but who signed her second and third marriage licenses … were they not Christians of convictional belief?”
“She should have resigned or taken a leave of absence during which she advocated for some kind of religious accommodation,” Fowler LaBerge added. “There are certainly provisions for the government to provide for the accommodation of people with religious convictions.”
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
