Originally published at ChristopherCantwell.com

Kim Davis, the 49 year old clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, has been the subject of much discussion as of late. Kim made headlines when she defied the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling from April, by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Davis cites her religious convictions as the reason for her refusal, and for ordering her underlings to refuse.

For this she was held in contempt, and jailed by U.S. District Judge David Bunning. Against the State: An ... Rockwell Jr., Llewelly... Best Price: $5.02 Buy New $5.52 (as of 11:35 UTC - Details)

I don’t take any particular pleasure in standing up for religious people. I have an extra special aversion to standing up for government bureaucrats. I don’t think “gay marriage” should be a political issue, because I don’t think relationships should require licenses. But unfortunately, the anti-human left, the people who think so much of democracy until their opinions are unpopular, have circumvented every concept of law and justice in the history of mankind, to persecute Kim Davis. Jailing her was an extraordinary measure designed to do a single thing – to terrorize America’s religious majority.

I know it’s a bit much to ask if you follow the news at all, but let us pretend for a moment that America had an honest legal system based around a constitution.  Let us pretend that the constitution were not a “living breathing document” but rather a set of laws which changed only by amendment. You know, sort of like what Americans were promised by the people who wrote it. Swords Into Plowshares... Paul, Ron Best Price: $4.00 Buy New $15.99 (as of 11:36 UTC - Details)

If such a legal system were to exist, we would not be having this discussion. Marriage is mentioned nowhere in the constitution, and the constitution grants no powers to the federal government that are not mentioned in the constitution. So while everyone is certainly entitled to any opinions on marriage one likes, it being a “constitutional right” isn’t an idea based in reality or US law.

As Justice John Roberts wrote in his dissent in Obergefell;

If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.

But the case of Kim Davis does involve a constitution. The constitution of Kentucky, which 75% of Kentucky voters opted to amend in a referendum from 2004. In that amendment, same-sex marriage, or any “legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage” was specifically outlawed. You might think that terrible, you might think it unjust, you might think it tyrannical, but that is the law in Kentucky. To throw someone into a Kentucky jail for upholding it, is nothing short of an act of war by the federal government against the state of Kentucky.

Never believe a leftist who tells you they believe in democracy. The Kentucky constitution, that’s what democracy looks like. The ban on gay marriage approved by the overwhelming majority of Kentucky voters, that’s what democracy looks like. Subverting democracy and the constitutions of both Kentucky and the United States, that is lawlessness and aggression on a scale anarchism can barely even comprehend. Suicide Pact: The Radi... Napolitano, Andrew P. Buy New $5.49 (as of 11:45 UTC - Details)

Some say Kim Davis should just do her job, that her religious convictions do not afford her the right to break the law. But Kim Davis did her job, and the only lawbreakers here are the federal courts. She upheld the constitution of Kentucky despite the violent threats of a belligerent judiciary drunk with power. The majority in Obergefell seized powers not designated to it by any text of the constitution nor any precedent of prior court rulings. They simply decided that gay marriage was good, and thus they would violently oppress anyone who disagreed with them.

They did so knowing it would be met with a great deal of resistance, not only from religious people, but from anyone with any regard for the constitution of the United States. So the moment that resistance presented itself, the judiciary took the most extreme measure available to it to crush that dissent, and strike fear into all who might follow her lead. Kim Davis is being held in jail, not until some sentence expires, but until she renounces her deity and conforms to the will of the court.

For anybody to call this freedom, for anybody to call this love, is beyond anything which George Orwell could possibly have imagined. Kim Davis is just the first who will be jailed over this decision. Others will follow, and before long we’ll see new discrimination suits against private interests as well, not dissimilar to the infamous gay wedding cake case. Before long, it will be the churches themselves on trial. Libertarians ought not celebrate religious persecution. Atheists ought not celebrate rampant violence and irrationality.

Some paint Kim Davis as a martyr, some as a demon, but she is neither. She is just a lowly bureaucrat, and whatever crimes she may stand guilty of for extracting her sustenance from taxpayers, that is not what she sits in jail for today. She sits in jail for upholding the law, and for anybody who is under the impression that the law exists to protect them, this should come as horrifying news.

We discussed this last night on Free Talk Live.

Reprinted with permission from Christopher Cantwell.

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