By Camille Taylor
Kim Davis, the Rowan County Kentucky Clerk, has been in the news for her personal decision to not issue marriage licenses for same sex couples.
Kim Davis is an elected government official. Initially, she was not issuing marriage licenses for any couples when she was sued and found to be in contempt of court. The problem is making a personal decision that conflicts with her duties as county clerk. George Washington added the words, “So help me God” when he took his oath of office. These words were not a part of the Constitution, but have continued as a “tradition” when people take oaths.
The bottom line is not “who” you swear your oaths “by” but “what” you swear to do.Officials in the U.S. don’t swear to uphold God’s law, but to uphold the Constitution which never mentions God at all. The framers of the Constitution didn’t include God in the oath, because it would have contradicted the proposition in the Constitution that said, “no religious test would ever be required to hold office under the Constitution.”
So while it may be admirable for a public official to say he/she won’t enforce laws that he/she feels are fundamentally immoral and in contradiction to God’s law, the only way to keep that promise consistent with the oath of office is to resign when you think enforcing the law would be wrong. Staying in the position would be hypocritical.
In addition, if she won’t issue marriage licenses to same sex couples while serving office, it violates the oath she made before God to uphold the Constitution and laws of the U.S. The Constitution requires her to issue licenses for gay couples, so when she disobeys the Constitution she violates her oath. The government can’t stop her from exercising freedom of religion, so Ms. Davis has two choices: serve the public and obey her oath of office or quit and absolve herself of that oath. Kim Davis was willing to go to jail for her beliefs. Let’s see is she’s willing to resign her office for her beliefs as well.
Camille Taylor, a retired Counselor from Normal Community High School, has been an educator in this community for 34 years. She is active in the community currently serving as a church elder and board member for both the Baby Fold and the YWCA. She has been recognized by the YWCA as a Woman of Distinction for education, a Martin Luther King Jr. award winner for the City of Bloomington, a Distinguished Alumni by the College of Education at Illinois State University, a Human and Civil Rights award winner for the Illinois Education Association, and the H.Councill Trenholm Award recipient from the National Education Association for her work with diversity. She lives in Bloomington with her husband, Arthur, and is a mother and grandmother.
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