No Kim Davis Fan, But Freedom Took a Hit Today

Oh the glee! Oh the mockery! Oh the jubilation!

Kim Davis, a Christian clerk has been sent to jail (yep jail) for her failure to comply with the law that allows same-sex couples to marry! Her refusal to put her name on the license granting a couple legal authority to wed has landed her in the slammer!

Didn’t we see this coming to America?

Jesus speaking of the last days warned his disciples, saying “But before all these things they will lay hands on you and they shall persecute you and they shall deliver you to councils and prisons, and they shall bring you before Kings and Governors because of my name.

For the first time in the United States, the words of Jesus (at least in this matter), has come to pass.

Christians have been taken to court and huge fines imposed – but no Christian, until today, had gone to prison.

Yes, this clerk failed to obey the law. But even those who brought suit against her asked the judge not to jail, but rather to fine her until she obeyed the law.

What are the implications?

There are three:

1) The end of days is closer than we think. Christians must straighten up, look up, for our redemption draws nigh (Luke 21:28).

This is not the time for God’s people to hold their heads down and become bowed with the persecution and trials we are to face. It is a time to rejoice, focus on our returning Lord, preach the gospel of the Kingdom, and rejoice!

2) All will feel the punishment.

The punishment that was meted out to this individual clerk was also meted out to all freedom loving people.

All of America will feel the loss of freedom in this action taken today.

When one freedom is removed (freedom of religion), the others are sure to follow.

Americans have not been paying attention. First Amendment freedoms are first because they are the most important to a free people.

When we can’t write what we believe, can’t speak what we believe, can’t gather together to demonstrate what we believe…then we can’t act on what we believe.

Men (and women) who can’t act are not free!

In this, we are all equally oppressed and equally suppressed. Yeah for equality!

3) The real division will manifest.

I can’t help but recall the words of Christ as recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Mt 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Mt 10:36 And a man’s foes [shall be] they of his own household.

Lu 12:53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Do you see it now?

I don’t know about you, but I know people like her. They are in my family. They are my friends. They are people I work with. They are my neighbors.

They are people who feel so passionately about something that they refuse to back away from [it]. Whatever the ‘it’ happens to be.

Do you have anything you hold that closely to yourself? Something you absolutely will not compromise on, for anyone, at anytime?

We’ve seen people murdered in cold blood for that kind of belief. We’ve seen people kill them for having such deeply held beliefs.

So I ask a question, when they come for your mother, who refuses to comply, will you turn her over? Gleefully celebrate her incarceration?

What relative, friend, co-worker, or neighbor are you willing to turn over to the authorities because ‘they won’t comply’?

Let me make this clear. I am not defending Kim Davis. I think she handled this badly. What I am defending so fiercely is freedom!

Freedom took a hit today — woe to America!

Have Black Americans Forgotten About Freedom?

Blacks Law Dictionary defines freedom as, “the state of being free; liberty; self-determination, absence of restraint; the opposite of slavery”.

This past Saturday was the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that struck down Plessy vs. Ferguson. The Plessy decision allowed the states to enact laws that required the separation of the races in public facilities, including schools. Brown not only struck down the Plessy decision of ‘separate but equal’, but also paved the way for civil rights activism in other areas where freedom was denied based on race.

Sixty years later segregation in the school system is again an issue in the minds of some. Only this time, forced legal segregation is not a factor. Instead, today’s segregation occurs by freedom in choice and/or opportunity. Parents are using their freedom to send their children to schools that have safer environments and successful student achievement and teacher performance results – without regard to racial mix. Which is more important – to have the ‘right’ racial mix or the best academic outcomes? Does it not make better sense to focus on making all schools safe and filled with the best teachers, rather than wasting resources assuring a racial mix of students?

In the civil rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s, Blacks were not fighting for the opportunity to be in the presence of Whites. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. organized, marched, protested, and died for freedom and an equality that didn’t exist for the American “negro”. Reverend King recognized that freedom was guaranteed for all by two sources — God and the U.S. Constitution. The fight was for the freedom to choose their paths without restraint. Laws that would force ‘diversity’ and take away freedom of choice violate the liberties of mankind, under God and the Constitution.

When people begin to place more emphasis on racial diversity, is that not a return to the days when race-based decisions disadvantaged rather than facilitated upward mobility for Blacks in America? It often seems that today’s Black leaders have forgotten the most important reason for the civil rights movement – it was a fight for the God-given freedom to live our lives, pursue our happiness, and enjoy our liberties without invoking government power over our choices.

Slavery — being in a state where choice is forcefully taken, is the complete opposite of freedom.

“Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” Alexis de Tocqueville