In 2015 Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk Kimberly Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples as a violation of her conscience and religious beliefs. After landing in jail, she requested the Democratic Governor for an exemption and accommodation of conscience. Davis’s attorneys argued that “Davis faces significant, irrevocable, and irreversible harm if she is forced to authorize and approve even one same-sex marriage license with her name on it, against her religious conscience.”
The Governor refused accommodation, stating “the legislature has placed the authority to issue marriage licenses squarely on county clerks by statute, and I have no legal authority to relieve them of their statutory duty by executive order.”
Now in 2017 the roles are reversed. A Democratic prosecutor, Aramis Ayala, “surprised many of her own supporters when she announced this week that her office would no longer seek capital punishment in a state that has one of the largest death rows.” Rick Scott, Republican governor, “promptly transferred a potential death penalty case — the killing of a police officer and a pregnant woman earlier this year — to another Florida prosecutor.”
Lawson Lamar, former State Attorney, said: “Anyone who raises their hand and takes the oath to be State Attorney must be able to go with the death penalty even if they feel it's distasteful.”
It appears that liberals and conservatives are defending conscience when the thing defended suits their conscience, and arguing that one must fulfill their oaths of office when it doesn’t suit their conscience.
The liberals and conservatives have flipped their views in these cases.
1 comment:
One slight difference (I think) is that Kimberly Davis held her office before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of homosexual marriage, while Aramis Ayala was elected to office knowing she disagreed with the law on capital punishment.
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