Objections to Certain Unaffable Rites: Kim Davis and the American Conscience

Kim Davis, County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, was held in contempt for her defiance of Constitutional law on the grounds of her faith. She refused to issue marriage licenses altogether in response to marriage equality.

The Kim Davis case, the County Clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses in Rowan County, Kentucky, presents a conundrum. For many, the conversation is wraught with problems on both sides of the argument. The debate is redefining and has strained the relationship between government employment and conscientious objection to federal/state policies, which were already tenuous. One thought I had, however, is how accountable or not accountable should we hold government employees when they defy policy on any grounds?

As a Christian, I may disagree with certain policies that are incongruent with my faith. Under federal law, reasonable accommodations are to be provided to employees such as wearing a burka or accommodations for prayer. These are physical accommodations where no federal law necessarily eschews. But what about philosophical accommodations?

Former Secretary of State, First Lady and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has come under fire for using her personal email account for government purposes. As a federal employee, she defied a government policy that prohibited use of private email in her work. Everything from Benghazi to what staffers knew in her employ has been called into question. The GOP as well as America has held her accountable for not valuing transparency.  Clinton should have been more responsible by adhering to the rule rather than valuing her own convenience. Kim Davis, on the other hand, has invoked the name of God in both her defiance and defense of the Constitution. It would be silly to think Hilary Clinton could invoke the name of Jesus on the issue of whether to use her gmail account or the .gov account. However, in a pluralistic society where poly-fill-in-the-blank is the aspired value, is there room for a Christian science teacher working in a public school to choose not to teach the core curriculum when she knows evolution is incongruent with her belief in creation? Is separation of church and state a "hard and fast rule" or is it pliable? Are religious people to be more creative in how they perform their job responsibilities w/o violating their consciences? Or, are departments such as the DOJ the only ones given the grace to defy federal policies?

In the Jim Crow South, and across America, laws and policies were violated by many people of whom were not employees of the state. However, we do know that there were places where county and state employees who were white (not a whole lot, a smidgen really) subversively and secretively defied segregation laws. The conscientious objector is the role of a person ready to risk it all to bring public attention to harmful policies. Edward Snowden, for example, is now living in exile in Russia for whistleblowing the federal government's harmful surveillance debacle while many illegal immigrants (not all) gain certain protections under law.  No matter where you stand on immigration, does government of the people and by the people protect objections to certain unaffable rites in it?

There are consequences for being the conscientious objector living and preaching in a hostile environment that cuts to the core of faith, belief and what it means to be American in this country. Should Kim Davis be held personally accountable for her defiance of the federal law as a state employee? The answer is as much yes as was the case for Meshach, Shadrach and Abegnego who defied Nebechadnezzer's law to worship him instead of the one true God. That story can be found in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. Since God is sovereign, if it is His will, she will be vindicated. However, she and others have to get comfortable with facing negative consequences when we defy the federal government and its laws. All of us, not just people of faith.

Invisible People with Invisible Problems: Race and the Blindess of White Privilege

I am invisible, understand, because people refuse to see me — Ralph Ellison, "Ibisible Man."

More and more I tend to speak less and less into FB conversations on race and white privilege because more and more as an African American... Nay as a brother in Christ who is Black living in America, I'm mostly "wrong." However, whether one is liberal or conservative in his or her politics, as a black person there is one thing that history cannot deny and that is the severe handicap that many of us have experienced collectively (not necessarily individually, which I'll explain); but together under a system that traditionally has awarded the "disaffected."

Ultimately, white privilege or white "advantage" is about economics. Money and education often grant access to opportunities that those who have not have no access to. However, putting money and education aside for a moment; white privilege (at its heart) is about acculturation/assimilation. It is about espousing values that marginalize, minimize and diminish the cultural values, beliefs, fears, pains and baggage of the "other" in order to maintain a status quo. It doesn't always recognize its purpose, but that status quo tends to deem the values of the "other" as incongruent with itself. It devalues cultural diversity. English-only is one example of this.

In France, I am at a severe disadvantage culturally and economically if I don't speak French. Even if I am not a native speaker of French, I'm marginalized at best. If I learn French as a second language, it grants more access. However, if I'm from N. Africa and Muslim (heck, if I'm from America and gung-ho American), I will find myself at a disadvantage there culturally. The French won't see it as rudeness. They will see it as the way it should be. Finding oneself on the fringe of a society and of its espoused values and beliefs systems is a disadvantage. Advantage and privilege will go to the members of that social club.

Earlier I mentioned how the marginalized often experience disadvantage collectively through history and injustice. The reason why some people of color will succeed individually and personally is because they will have had access to certain aspects or components of privilege. Yet, this often comes at a cost. If I lose my language, lose my patois; if I lose my gutteral and broken English; if I stop eating/cooking/smelling-like "guk" food (watch Gran Torino) and disengage my family/ethnic/nationalistic values — then I'm closer to "whiteness" in America. But can a leopard change his spots? Can a zebra change her stripes? 

Think about the image of a zebra losing her stripes for a moment. In your mind's eye (and be honest), what color is the horse? If you said "white," then your closer to a large percentage of people who see "black" as bad or negative. I, too, see a "white" zebra. Why is that? Education. We're often taught that black/darkness is bad. What we do though is erroneously attribute that philosophical/moral sensibility to people and things. We don't realize this. And that is why "black" lives matter, not just "all" lives. This is why "black" is beautiful and not just "all" people; because when you are marginalized, you become invisible (read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man — not to be confused w/ H.G. Wells' "The" Invisible Man). Invisibility means not counting, not being noticed, not-existent. White advantage/privilege doesn't see the problems. It only sees a white zebra because it has ignored the other stripes. 

So, personally, I have to lose a lot plus have independent wealth and education to experience less marginalization and more "whiteness." What if I lost my blackness both physically and culturally? Then will I have the greatest advantage historically and traditionally? Yes. I'm still a man. If no longer invisible.

Obama, Gun Crimes, the States and Gun Laws

In a recent interview with the BBC, President Obama lamented his inability to effectively tackle guns during his presidency. The President was quoted in "The Hill" saying, “If you ask me where has been the one area that I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United States is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient, common-sense gun safety laws.” As I think about this and the unnerving and seemingly escalating gun violence in the nation, I wondered what the laws looked like from state-to-state.

According to research collected by Deseret in 2013 for a report ranking the ten states with the most strict gun laws, IL ranked #2 overall. This was just before the laws changed allowing conceal-carry permits. As I was doing some brief research of my own, I wanted to know which states had the most gun crimes/violence in the United States. I was surprised with what I learned.

Alaska ranked #1 followed by Louisiana and Mississippi. Tennessee ranked #10. Other states in the top ten included Montana, New Mexico, Alabama, Wyoming, Oklahoma, & Arkansas. No where to be found in the top ten of the CDC's research from 2013 were Michigan, Illinois, California, Texas, or New York; though one may argue that gun violence in large cities like Chicago, LA, Houston and New York City; or mid-sized cities like Washington DC, Detroit, Baltimore and Cleveland make up the bulk of gun deaths in those states. I'm not sure. However, I wondered if there was a direct correlation between poverty and gun crime in subordination to the gun laws of any one particular state.

In 2013 Pennsylvania ranked #1 with having the strictest gun laws in that Deseret poll. California ranked #10. Other states included Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Connecticut & New York. Go figure. The states with the strictest gun laws had less gun crime than the top ten states that had the least restrictive gun laws including a common rule across those particular states: Stand Your Ground.

So in 2013, the states that had the strictest gun laws, including Illinois, had less gun crimes than the states that had less restrictive gun laws. This shouldn't be rocket science, but as a 2nd amendment supporter it bolsters my opinion that common sense laws safeguarding lives should trump my ability for legal easy access to guns.

We need to get illegal firearms off the street and tackle socio-economic issues that tend to exacerbate gun violence in our major, urban areas. In states like Alabama, Mississippi and Alaska, addressing social justice issues, poverty, education, and employment are critical. I was even surprised that of the gun crimes in the top ten at least four or five were located in the infamous Bible Belt. Maybe we need to open up the Word more rather than opening up a hail of .45 calibre bullets.

Overall, addressing poverty in direct correlation with common sense gun legislation should theoretically reduce the amount of real gun violence in states — perceived or not. But here's the rub: right now, gun crimes are down 49% nationally as a whole since the early '90's (Pew, 2013).

Internet References

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/249022-obama-inaction-on-guns-biggest-frustration-of-my-presidency

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/13/24-7-wall-st-states-most-gun-violence/71003050/

http://m.deseretnews.com/top/1428/0/10-states-with-the-strictest-gun-laws.html?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F%3Fref%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

In View of the SCOTUS Decision on Marriage Equality

When Jesus confronted the Pharisees who caught a woman in her adultery and then brought her before Him to test Him (John 8:1-11), they quoted the Law of Moses which required that she be stoned. Unmoved, Jesus (knowing their thoughts) began writing in the sand. We don't know what he scribbled there. Maybe he was biding time before responding to them. Yet, He replied to her accusers, "You who have no sin cast the first stone," then returned to his scribbling. Eventually, one by one from oldest to youngest, her male accusers dropped their rocks/stones and went away until there were none. Jesus then turned to the adulterous woman and asked her, "Where are your accusers, those who condemned you?" She replied to Him "There are none Lord." 

"Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

In view of the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality, some of my dear brothers and sisters in Christ have made themselves into Pharisees. They've made themselves the moral authorities when to be honest they are not. Christ is the moral authority and we are flawed at best in our own moral standards.

However, many of my 'neighbors' in the LGBT community refuse to acknowledge that we've all stumbled in our attempts to create our own standards around sex and human sexuality rather than follow God's standard. Jesus simply desires that we confess our sin and he will be faithful and just to forgive our sin and to restore us from all unrighteousness; to restore us toward his standard. Jesus restored this woman, and he wants to restore us by his love and mercy: his moral authority. He gave her life when according to the Law she was deserving of death. We, too, are deserving of death, but Jesus offers us life in his name.

Jesus also confronts our sin w/o accusation. It is our responsibility to acknowledge our sin. He also wants us to sin no more, which is the task before us. Though we may fail at times, he still commands us, "Sin no more." In Christ and Christ in me there is no sin. Yet if I refuse to acknowledge my faults, I call God a liar. However, Father forgive me for when I fail. Lord thank you for your love and mercy towards me. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for life in your name through the power of the resurrection. 

Many will ask, though, "Whose God?" This is also the metaphorical crux. If people refuse to believe Jesus, then they themselves are their own moral authority and do not acknowledge their nature as sinful in the face of challenges to their lifestyle choices, decisions and behaviors. For without faith it is impossible to please God, for one must acknowledge that he exists in order to pursue greater revealed knowledge of he truly is.

All this to say: as Christ followers, refuse to be hypocrites. Refuse to be Pharisees in your own eyes, in your own condemnation of others as a moral authority. Understand the motives of your hearts. Be like Jesus who, not lacking in compassion, confronted this woman with love, mercy and grace. Sinner — acknowledge your sin. Accept God's love and sin no more. If you stumble or fail, acknowledge it. You have an Advocate before the Father, Christ Jesus the Righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins. 

I love all of you and wish only the best that God has to offer each and every one of us.