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September 10, 2015 11:07 AM UTC

Lundberg supports Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses

  • 19 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R).
Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R).

UPDATE: The Denver Post’s John Frank asked Lundberg Friday whether he’d back a Colorado clerk who denied same-sex marriage licenses. “I believe that they have that responsibility as an elected official to ask themselves, am I fulfilling my job or not,” Lundberg told The Post. This comment may have led, in part, to the Post’s editorial today pointing out that Lundberg “appears confused about whether state officials can ignore laws they don’t like.” The Post called Lundberg’s stance “disturbing.”

——-

In a string of Facebook posts beginning Sept. 3, Colorado State Sen. Kevin Lundberg hasn’t been shy about his support for Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis, who landed in jail after giving marriage licences to some loving couples but not others.

Who would expect Lundberg to be shy, given his uncompromising stances on social issues in the legislature? But he is a state senator, which is why his fringe view should be aired out by reporters and others. To wit:

On Facebook, Lundberg wrote that Davis is “abiding by the laws of God and man. The Supreme Court and their inferior courts are the ones in violation of the rule of law.”

Lundberg:

Good for Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who is refusing to issue “marriage” licenses on the grounds that it violates God’s law, and her conscience.

Have the Federal judges become kings and queens who can fabricate law out of thin air and then throw state government officials in jail for daring to oppose their plans? What Constitutional authority does the Federal Court have to jail this elected official for exercising her best judgement in fulfilling her duties as county clerk? If the people who elected her want her to change, they can speak through any recall procedures the State of Kentucky allows, or vote her out at the next election for county clerk, but the Federal Courts should stay out of areas of law clearly reserved for state jurisdiction.

The courts have certainly seized this power and demonstrated their autocratic intentions long ago, but they do not derive this authority from the Constitution, which is the law of the land.

In my opinion the clerk is abiding by the laws of God and man. The Supreme Court and their inferior courts are the ones in violation of the rule of law.

In a post last week, Lundberg addresses the question of why Davis shouldn’t just resign:

Additionally, many are saying that the clerk is not following the “rule of law.” I submit it is more accurate to say she is not following the rule of the Court. If anyone is actually following the rule of law, it is clerk Davis.

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19 thoughts on “Lundberg supports Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses”

    1. Most of the Republican county clerks in Colorado are kind of moderate. By which I mean, they perform their jobs – they  facilitate elections without being loyal to any particular party.

      This is why Marilyn Marks is constantly suing them.

  2. Senator Lundberg overlooks the fact that Ms. Davis, like so many other fundamentalists, has chosen to pick & choose which parts of the Bible to follow. Check out Romans 13; 1 Peter 2:13; Titus 3:1; among others like the gospel admonitions to render to Caesar, etc.

    Regarding not following an inferior law, what part of the US Constitution does Senator Lundberg not understand?

    And perhaps the Senator might consider that Ms. Davis has violated the religious freedom of those couples, heterosexual and gay, to whom she did not issue licenses. She imposed her religious beliefs on those individuals when she did not follow Kentucky law, as an elected official who issues marriage licenses.

  4. It was the same bs theory our little watermelon farmer used when he was the sole vote in the entire legislature against divestment in companies operating in Darfur during the genocide. (it was just black people in a far away land being murdered -why should we bother?)  His staunch suspect situational pro-life bona fides aside, he thought the magic hand of a fixed free marketplace would solve the problem and the government had no business telling business how/where/with whose money to operate. 

    In the Senators case, Lundberg has supplanted the business community with God, but it's the same, tired schtick.  I imagine if he had lived in the time of Lincoln he'd be espousing Ephesians 6:5 to support the 1%-ers. 

  5. Of course court decisions do not fabricate laws. They simply determine whether or not laws comport with the constitution. Once they determined that the constitution does not allow discrimination against same sex couples who wish to marry because of the guarantee of equal rights to all citizens, that rendered all laws banning such marriages unconstitutional and therefore null and void. It was the same when the courts declared laws against mixed race marriages unconstitutional. The laws against such marriages became void. The same when they ruled against the segregationist notion of separate but equal.  No new law was fabricated. Laws judged unconstitutional became null and void.

    This is a power that belongs to our judicial branch and to it alone, the power to review laws to make sure they comply with the constitution. There is nothing dictatorial or monarchical about the judicial branch exercising the powers granted to it.

    All the Republicans claiming that court decisions create law and/or that exercising legitimate power is dictatorial are ignorant of how our system of government works. Unfortunately, with the death of civics education in our schools as a requirement, the public listens and believes that they know WTF they're talking about.

    Too bad the media and fellow Republican pols who don't wish to anger the ignorant hateful, fearful base let them say these things without contradicting them and using these ridiculously ignorant statements as teaching moments.The pols would rather not tick their base off and the media would rather stage he said/she said equally valid "opinion"  yelling matches for ratings.

     

    1. BC, you're forgetting that while the constitution is a nice piece of paper — especially that second clause in the Second Amendment — there is a document which, in the eyes of these theocratic nuts, supersedes the constitution. It's the Bible!

        1. Bring back required civics. Nobody should get out of 8th grade without passing a civics course and everyone should have to pass a more advanced version before they get out of High School.

      2. And since we don't teach civics anymore these people have no idea that we aren't a Christian nation, that we are in fact banned from having any official religion and our government is banned from showing preference for any religion and  that the Bible has no more force of law under our constitution than does the Koran. They have no idea that Biblical law is just as irrelevant here as Sharia law. Yeah. I know.

        2. Civics content has been incorporated into American history and American literature.

          It's up to the teacher to either treat civics as a dull, ancient document, or to make connections with present day events. Connecting with present day events is more engaging to the students, but politically risky.

           

  7. I don't think "Clerk Davis" has quite the powerful ring that Lundberg hoped it would have.   This whole thing reminds me of the GOP's old tactic of referring to Ken Starr as "Judge Starr" throughout the Whitewater investigation and the drive to impeach Bill Clinton afterwards … as if the title gave Starr more legitimacy.   Are we supposed to give out a low whistle and say "Wow, I forgot … Kim Davis is a CLERK.  Wow.  That's powerful stuff.  I guess we had better lay off all the criticism, and respect the office!"

    So anyway … here the problem.   And it is directly related to Davis' job title.

    "Clerk Davis" is a government official.  As a clerk, she is supposed to be carrying out the official administrative business of the state government.   It is more than a regular 9 to 5 job in the private sector – since she fulfills a government function.  Davis is not supposed to be able to create policy or exercise discretion.  And Davis is not supposed to be able to individually determine which ones of those functions of state business she is going to perform or refuse, based on her own moral compass. The way she performs her job is NOT up to her "best judgement" (which is the term that Lundberg used).   And Davis is accountable to more than herself, or the people that vote in local elections, in terms of how she acts in her job. Davis doesn't get to make up the law.

    If Davis can't or won't fulfill her job according to secular standards, and doesn't want to act as a clerk without picking and choosing and selectively nullifying some of those functions, then Davis should resign her position.  

    But what Davis and Lundberg is arguing for is a special kind of entitlement where Davis satisfy her faith AND defy the the law AND effectively create her own little corner of nullification AND while getting to keep her job AND without suffering any legal consequences at all.   Cute.

    1. Clerk Davis does not quite have the sparkle that "Better Than the Supremes Queen" does.  Just as Republican politicians who promote tough laws on gays, are often outed as Gay and are passing the legislation to attempt to make themselves be straight.  Me thinks this adultress who is constantly trying to make "marriage" and affairs force herself to be straight, might be having a religious experience and anti-gay effort to keep herself straight.

  8. Lundberg's comments sound like something the Taliban would say.

    If he will not preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States he is himself not fit for office.

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