“Good Faith Clerk” booklet is a free download
My Sept. 24, 2015, letter to now-freed Rowan County, Ky., clerk Kim Davis recommending that she fortify her legal position vis a vis the gay mudslide by the simple arguments in our little booklet, “Good Faith & the County Clerk.”
Dear Mrs. Davis,
The story of your jailing has filled ordinary citizens and faithful Christians with a mix of dread and anger. We dread what “the good people” have in store for us, with their courts, their statutes, their oppressive “equality” bills, their continuing and nonbiodegradeable indignation.
We are angry that constitutional government is being overturned and in its place imposed a tyrannical judicial power unrestrained.
God has been gracious to you, and your presence in that jail was a great honor to the jail chief and his attendants. I have no doubt that Christ comforted you in your cell, and that when you prayed to the Father our Lord Jesus and His Holy Spirit quietly and comfortably sat at the Father’s throne, blessing you and comforting you.
I write to propose a fortification of your arguments against the judicial imperialists in U.S. jurisdiction and also in your county.
I propose that you fortify your arguments and stand on grounds better than your personal religious beliefs about gays and about marriage.
Mat Staver and others who have counseled you appear to have not secured you as much as I would like to.
Generally, you have authority to maintain your ground quite apart from your religious convictions. The whole effort to find for you an accommodation seems misguided, as if your struggles are about your private Christian beliefs and a hostile outside world.
The struggle is not so much between your Christian beliefs and a pro-gay federal ruling as between Kentucky’s laws vs. a federal court opinion, Obergefell v. Hodges.
The main improvement is that you stand on objective grounds — rather than subjective.
The objective elements that seem gravely understressed in public utterances and reporting about your case are as follows:
— Your oath of office
— The God who enforces and guarantees and witnesses your oath
— The state constitution’s marriage provisions
— The Kentucky perjury statute
The Kentucky constitution lives in your defense of it. You defend it through the oath and under the power the oath gives you as a clerk. Like the Holy Spirit, the oath is a means whereby you maintain your courage and your hope. You are right. The tyrant judge is wrong. Liberty breathes through constitutional government, and from it you fulfill your aspirations as a representative of the people, and of lawful government.
Your job is ministerial, not personal. You are a minister of constitutional government, and do not have discretion as to define marriage any differently than does your lawful authority, which is to say the state constitution.
I make these arguments in brief in the little booklet, enclosed, “Good Faith & the County Clerk.” I suggest you reorient your defense to objective grounds rather than subjective, and to show that you are acting in good faith, not bad.
Please contact me if you’d like to discuss any of the matters I’ve raised.
Yours in Christ’s bonds, etc.
