As Muhammad Ali is eulogized today, there will undoubtedly be (as there has been all week) accolades from liberals for exercising his right of religious conscience in refusing to be drafted into the military during the Vietnam War on freedom of religious conscience grounds.
So the question is this: Why is a Muslim's exercise of his right of conscience to refuse to serve in the military to be considered laudable while the Christian's exercise of the same right in refusing to participate in a same-sex marriage to be considered deplorable?
And by the way, saying that you agree with Ali and don't agree with, say, Kim Davis doesn't work. Rights aren't rights only when the reason for exercising them is one you agree with.
To answer the question of the title of the post, because Davis is a self-serving petty thief who shows little evidence of really following her "Christian" convictions.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the hatred and penalty Ali suffered dwarf, utterly and completely, any inconvenience Davis has had to put up with.
ReplyDeleteOh. A petty thief. Umhmm. Was that why they put her in jail?
ReplyDeleteAnd we just know who's hated more, don't we? Just look at all the revulsion in the media of Ali today compared to all the love Davis was feeling last year.
ReplyDeleteWell, Kim Davis was a civil servant, an elected official, who swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States as a representative of the people who elected her to that position. Muhammad Ali was none of those things, and wasn't under the same "duty" as Davis. Further, no one was asking Davis to "participate" in same-sex marriage, which would have be deplorable. She was merely being asked to issue marriage licenses, on which the State of KY requires the Clerk's signature. That license in no way condones same-sex marriage, nor does it force participation in the ceremony itself. Ali was going to be forced to physically and actively participate in a war, which was against his religious beliefs. He wasn't asked to sign a piece of paper for someone else to be able to participate in that war. Get it now?
ReplyDeleteMartin, are you saying theives should not be jailed? Or prosecuted?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I can see where you are going with your, um, reasoning.
How many millions did Ali leave on the table because of his faith? How many thousands did Davis refuse to return to the taxpayers she ripped off, because of her "faith"?
ReplyDeleteFocus, people, focus.
ReplyDeleteThe question is why the exercise of Muhammad Ali's right of religious conscience in defying his legal obligation to defend his country is legitimate, while a public official's right of religious conscience in defying a legal obligation to affirm same-sex marriage is not.
Art just tries to shift the ground of argument onto some fantasy he has about thievery and just asserts (with no evidence that I can see) that she wasn't, in fact, sincere in her religious concerns.
Anonymous, you talk about Kim Davis swearing an oath to a constitution (both federal AND state, by the way, not just federal) that either said literally nothing about same-sex marriage (the federal) or a banned it outright (the state) as constituting some kind of obligation to affirm same-sex marriage. Maybe you could tease this out a bit. On the fact of it, it has no logical force.
Furthermore, the people who elected her to that position were the very same people who voted to exclude same-sex marriage from the definition of marriage in the amendment to the Kentucky Constitution that she swore an oath to.
And if you want to say that signing the very document that makes the same-sex marriage a legal reality does not constitute "participation" in the marriage, then I guess being the minister who presides and gives it a religious reality doesn't constitute "participation" either.
If actually creating the legal and the religious reality of marriage doesn't constitute participation, then I'd like to know what does.
The license in no way "condones" same-sex marriage? Seriously? Not only does it condone it, it actually constitutes it legally. If it didn't, then what harm does it do to the same-sex couple if it is refused?
And the only difference between Ali's action and Kim Davis' is that in Ali's case (even though I am not unsympathetic with it) his action had the advantage of saving his skin, while all Davis' action got her was legal retribution and jail time.
Ali's action didn't save his skin. If he had accepted induction, he wouldn't have been sent into combat. He would've done a morale boosting tour to meet and greet the troops. Ali was stripped of his title and banned from his profession for years, in what would've been his prime. Davis spent a few days in jail and became a celebrity, rubbing shoulders with presidential candidates and meeting the Pope. More importantly, Ali acted out of a desire to do no harm, while the hypocrite Davis, who entered into multiple adulterous "marriages" in violation of Bible, acted to harm others out of hatred.
ReplyDelete