Is Kim Davis Right to Refuse Marriage Licenses
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Welcome to this special weekend edition
00:00:07.060 | of the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:09.320 | In the last week or so, we have gotten about 50 emails
00:00:12.360 | from listeners who wanna hear from you, Pastor John,
00:00:14.960 | about Kim Davis, a county clerk in the state of Kentucky.
00:00:18.120 | Here's one such email from Sherry,
00:00:19.800 | one of our faithful podcast listeners,
00:00:21.480 | who simply asks this.
00:00:23.480 | Pastor John, is Kim Davis wrong
00:00:26.000 | for not signing same-sex marriage licenses?
00:00:29.320 | What would you say, Pastor John?
00:00:31.680 | I don't know Kim Davis's heart,
00:00:34.960 | and so I can't assess her motives,
00:00:38.520 | and I don't know her theology.
00:00:40.820 | It's possible to do right actions for wrong reasons,
00:00:45.400 | and so be wrong in doing right.
00:00:48.620 | So I'll just try to say something about her actions
00:00:53.280 | and what appear to be some of her convictions,
00:00:56.560 | and perhaps touch on some wider implications.
00:01:00.120 | So first, I think she's right
00:01:03.200 | in rejecting so-called same-sex marriage
00:01:08.000 | as contrary to God's design for what marriage is,
00:01:11.840 | and she is right in assessing this departure
00:01:16.560 | from God's will as massive, not marginal,
00:01:20.640 | and as personally and culturally deadly, not trivial.
00:01:26.560 | And therefore, not something
00:01:29.240 | that you can just go along with
00:01:31.200 | as if that were a loving thing to do.
00:01:34.520 | The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10
00:01:37.760 | that the endorsement of same-sex practice,
00:01:41.800 | which is what the approval
00:01:43.320 | of so-called same-sex marriage does,
00:01:46.920 | that that endorsement of that practice,
00:01:49.240 | along with idolatry, greed, theft, drunkenness,
00:01:52.200 | is an endorsement of the destruction of persons.
00:01:57.040 | Those who impenitently practice such things
00:02:00.640 | will not inherit the kingdom of God.
00:02:04.440 | Calling such behaviors legal in no way
00:02:09.120 | removes the capital punishment that will follow in eternity.
00:02:14.120 | Therefore, this judgment of the Supreme Court
00:02:18.680 | is massively evil and deadly for persons.
00:02:23.680 | Kim Davis is right if she believes that.
00:02:27.600 | Seems she does.
00:02:28.920 | Second, I think she's morally right
00:02:33.000 | and probably legally right to refuse
00:02:37.320 | to put her name on the marriage license
00:02:39.160 | of two men or two women.
00:02:41.380 | She's morally right because God has given civil authority
00:02:47.720 | and civil authorities to the world
00:02:51.880 | to reward the right and punish the evil.
00:02:54.480 | So when those authorities, instead of doing that,
00:02:59.200 | promote evil and punish good,
00:03:02.360 | those authorities may rightly be disobeyed
00:03:07.320 | for the sake of obeying God.
00:03:10.120 | So here are the two key texts.
00:03:13.000 | 1 Peter 2, 13.
00:03:14.640 | Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution,
00:03:18.120 | whether it be to the emperor supreme or to governors
00:03:21.880 | as sent by him to punish those who do evil
00:03:26.880 | and to praise those who do good.
00:03:31.160 | So be subject to governors as they're sent
00:03:35.160 | to punish evil and do good.
00:03:38.360 | Paul said it like this, Romans 13, 1.
00:03:41.600 | "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities,
00:03:45.320 | "for there is no authority except from God,
00:03:48.080 | "for," here's the ground,
00:03:50.440 | "rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
00:03:55.440 | "He is God's servant for your good."
00:03:58.240 | Now, I don't think Peter and Paul are naive
00:04:02.240 | in writing this way.
00:04:04.280 | I think what they mean when they tell us
00:04:08.000 | that this is the way it is,
00:04:11.320 | this is what governments do,
00:04:13.080 | they reward the good, they punish the evil,
00:04:16.520 | that what they mean is that this is what governments
00:04:20.400 | ought to do.
00:04:22.000 | This is the way it ought to be.
00:04:23.920 | For example, when Paul says,
00:04:26.100 | "Rulers are not a terror to good conduct,"
00:04:31.100 | we're liable to scratch our heads
00:04:33.880 | to think of a hundred cases where governments
00:04:37.200 | have slaughtered people in great wickedness.
00:04:40.120 | And so what in the world, Paul?
00:04:42.640 | Well, Paul says rulers are not a terror to good conduct.
00:04:47.640 | Like a dad says to his children,
00:04:52.800 | "We tell the truth in this family."
00:04:55.600 | That's the indicative statement of what ought to be.
00:04:59.200 | "We treat other with kindness in this family."
00:05:02.000 | That's what we do.
00:05:03.200 | He doesn't mean sin never happens in this family.
00:05:06.660 | The kids are not always good.
00:05:08.760 | He means this is what we ought to do.
00:05:13.160 | And when we don't act this way,
00:05:14.960 | we're acting out of character.
00:05:16.280 | It ought not to be.
00:05:17.600 | Something should change.
00:05:19.400 | And so it is with governments.
00:05:22.320 | They exist to support the good and resist the bad.
00:05:27.320 | And here's an interesting thing.
00:05:30.200 | A few verses later in Peter 2.18,
00:05:36.640 | he gives an illustration of how slaves
00:05:40.200 | are to be subject to masters.
00:05:41.920 | So he's carrying this submission theme through
00:05:45.260 | for governments and slaves and wives and husbands
00:05:48.360 | and children and so on.
00:05:50.160 | And then he says, "Servants, be subject to your masters,
00:05:54.160 | "even to the unjust, for what credit is it
00:05:59.160 | "if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?
00:06:04.240 | "But if when you do good, when you do good
00:06:09.240 | "and suffer for it, you endure,
00:06:12.060 | "this is a gracious thing in the sight of God."
00:06:14.560 | So Peter envisions someone under authority
00:06:19.560 | doing something good that gets him a beating.
00:06:23.460 | Authorities don't ordinarily punish people
00:06:26.840 | for being completely compliant.
00:06:29.320 | Now, of course, it may be that the slave was slandered
00:06:34.320 | and then punished for something he did not do.
00:06:38.640 | That's possible, but that's not what the text says.
00:06:41.400 | He wouldn't jump to that conclusion, I don't think,
00:06:45.000 | without pressing it.
00:06:47.040 | And it seems to me that he has done something good.
00:06:51.640 | Maybe he stuck up for a fellow Christian slave
00:06:55.240 | or maybe he shared the gospel or maybe he or she, say,
00:06:59.840 | refused to have sex with the master.
00:07:02.640 | When you do good and suffer and endure,
00:07:06.400 | this is a gracious thing with God.
00:07:08.120 | So it may well be, I suspect it is,
00:07:11.120 | that this slave or citizen or wife or whatever
00:07:15.920 | knew he or she would pay a price.
00:07:20.920 | And that was a gracious thing with God,
00:07:23.680 | to suffer like that for doing good.
00:07:27.400 | Now, I think Kim Davis was right
00:07:31.320 | not to sign the marriage licenses
00:07:34.120 | and thus to treat evil as marriage.
00:07:37.720 | It's not marriage.
00:07:38.840 | And to participate in the endorsement
00:07:41.960 | of anyone's destruction, which is what she's doing
00:07:44.920 | if she blesses with her authority and her signature,
00:07:48.800 | this union which leads to destruction.
00:07:51.800 | Encouraging homosexual behavior
00:07:53.840 | is the participation in someone's destruction.
00:07:57.520 | I think she's right not to do that.
00:08:01.320 | Now, I said she may be also legally right
00:08:06.320 | and not just morally right.
00:08:08.640 | Now, this is complicated, but just a few observations.
00:08:11.800 | Was she legally bound to resign
00:08:15.520 | instead of obstructing the licensing process?
00:08:17.920 | Now, there are two angles on this,
00:08:19.940 | two ways to come at this.
00:08:22.240 | One is to observe that perhaps
00:08:25.320 | she's not the one breaking the law,
00:08:27.280 | but that the Supreme Court broke the law
00:08:29.900 | by the ludicrous claim that they could find
00:08:33.320 | in the Constitution a right to the nonexistent illusion
00:08:36.640 | called same-sex marriage.
00:08:38.040 | That's absolutely ludicrous
00:08:39.780 | that they could find such a thing in the Constitution.
00:08:42.640 | They came up with that out of thin air
00:08:45.520 | because they want it to be.
00:08:49.300 | There does come a point, doesn't there?
00:08:51.260 | I mean, I have to ask everybody,
00:08:52.300 | doesn't there come a point where people with eyes say,
00:08:56.780 | "This strutting court has no clothes on."
00:09:01.020 | They may have a tiny little,
00:09:02.780 | a picture, maybe an inch across,
00:09:04.740 | a tiny tyrannical crown on their heads,
00:09:08.360 | but they are not robed with the royal power
00:09:12.340 | to make the Constitution condone the killing of children
00:09:15.700 | and so-called same-sex marriage.
00:09:17.740 | It cannot be done.
00:09:19.980 | They have created out of nothing this mirage.
00:09:24.500 | The other angle that suggests Kim Davis
00:09:29.480 | was not only morally right, but perhaps legally right,
00:09:34.300 | is that she was drawing the line, the hill to die on,
00:09:39.300 | not at whether so-called gay marriage
00:09:42.900 | could be authorized by anyone in Kentucky,
00:09:45.780 | but by whether it would have to be authorized by her.
00:09:49.980 | The specific issue was whether her name
00:09:53.220 | or her official authority as clerk was put on the licenses.
00:09:58.220 | And so the legal question is, does an employee,
00:10:04.400 | even an elected employee,
00:10:07.020 | have to comply with every aspect of the job description
00:10:12.020 | if it compromises the conscience
00:10:15.580 | or are there legal, legal, that's the key word here,
00:10:18.260 | the legal provisions that mandate
00:10:21.780 | that an employer adjust the employee's job requirements
00:10:25.860 | to avoid the conflict with conscience?
00:10:28.240 | And the answer is yes.
00:10:29.720 | Both the Federal Civil Rights Act
00:10:31.820 | and Kentucky's Religious Freedom Restoration Act
00:10:35.020 | have such provisions in them.
00:10:37.900 | And so the question for the court,
00:10:39.500 | if she pursues it this way,
00:10:41.180 | I don't know how she's pursuing it,
00:10:43.940 | is whether the adjustment in her job description
00:10:47.780 | can be made without an undue burden on that office,
00:10:52.380 | on the employer.
00:10:54.380 | Kim Davis's case is not unique.
00:10:57.140 | People need to really be aware of this.
00:10:59.540 | Can she keep her job and not do part of her job
00:11:04.260 | because of her conscience?
00:11:05.580 | Like, and these are all real litigations,
00:11:08.300 | nurses who have religious objections,
00:11:11.260 | not to being a nurse, but to doing abortions,
00:11:13.340 | can they keep their job and not do abortions?
00:11:15.780 | Even though the hospital says you have to, that's your job.
00:11:18.340 | Can a Muslim truck driver not transport alcohol?
00:11:21.600 | Can a pacifist postal worker
00:11:23.820 | not process draft registration forms?
00:11:26.540 | Can a Jehovah's Witness employee
00:11:29.380 | not be required to raise the flag at the school?
00:11:32.200 | Can a vegetarian bus driver
00:11:33.600 | not be required to hand out hamburger coupons?
00:11:36.280 | I mean, those are all real cases I read
00:11:38.820 | about whether or not legally
00:11:42.180 | one can have his job description without resigning,
00:11:46.780 | adjusted so as to avoid the conflict with conscience.
00:11:49.900 | So for Kim Davis, the legal question is,
00:11:52.000 | can she be given an exemption
00:11:53.980 | so that she can carry out her clerk's duties
00:11:57.540 | while not giving any of her official authority
00:12:00.820 | to the licensing of so-called same-sex marriage?
00:12:04.880 | And the answer is, we'll see.
00:12:06.140 | I don't know what's gonna happen.
00:12:08.180 | But morally, she is, of course, just one prominent case
00:12:13.180 | of what will be hundreds in the months and years to come
00:12:17.500 | as Christians and others draw a line of conscience
00:12:21.820 | beyond which they will not go.
00:12:25.720 | And the upshot for us, all of us,
00:12:29.220 | is that we should all be pondering now
00:12:32.580 | what that line is in our vocation, our schooling,
00:12:36.880 | our civic life, our finances, our friendships,
00:12:40.300 | because if we're not fixed and strong in our resolve
00:12:45.300 | and are taken off guard with the threat of loss,
00:12:50.820 | we will cave in.
00:12:52.780 | Now, now is the time to be clear and resolve
00:12:57.400 | before they knock on your door.
00:12:59.260 | - Wonderful, Pastor John.
00:13:01.460 | Thank you for tackling this subject.
00:13:03.420 | And thank you, Sherry, for the question,
00:13:04.760 | and for everyone who sent in questions about this issue.
00:13:06.980 | Thank you.
00:13:08.060 | Please keep your questions coming in to us.
00:13:10.660 | Thank you for listening to this special weekend edition
00:13:12.920 | of the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:13:14.580 | For more details, go to our site at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn
00:13:19.580 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:22.740 | We'll see you on Monday.
00:13:23.940 | (upbeat music)
00:13:26.520 | (upbeat music)
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