Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Kim Davis is symbol of the desperate anti-gay right

Kim Davis

If Kim Davis refuses to comply and give out marriage licenses today, then the lgbt community should be aware of her game and the game of those exploiting her.

It's all about optics, folks.

This is solely my opinion, but I am betting that she and the Liberty Counsel - the anti-gay hate group "advising her"  - want Davis to be held in contempt. Davis herself wants to be a sacrificial lamb for the so-called cause of religious liberty, no matter how unfair her stance is against gay couples who fought and won the right to marry the correct and American way.

For years anti-gay groups have fought against marriage equality via lies, distorted studies, religious doctrine, and basic fear tactics. In the arena of public opinion, they were successful  by spinning false narratives of gays attempting to corrupt children and destroy the concept of marriage.

It was when that argument moved away from the public arena and to the courts that they began to losing. As attorney David Boies noted after the Proposition 8 trial, the witness stand is indeed a lonely place to lie. And though they fooled the American people with horror stories, the anti-gay right failed miserably to do this in the courts, i.e. the place where logic prevails. The place where you cannot get away with blatant lies.

So when you are moved from an arena where you have been successful to one which all but guarantees your failure, what do you do? Somehow move the argument back to the arena where you have had past successes.

Or in this case, find a patsy so full of religious entitlement and in a position where the outcome has the potential to be as severe as possible and somehow convince her to sacrifice her name, reputation, and livelihood  on the false altar of a higher purpose.

Can you imagine what would happen if we ever got to the point where somehow Davis would be put in jail, or at the very least led away in handcuffs in front of the televised and print media who would play the clip and run the photos continuously and on a worldwide scale?

It's not simply a coincidence that  there has been little to no debate about Davis from the usual suspects at Fox News, the Family Research Council, or many other major anti-gay right-wing source and personalities.

I bet they are biding their time for the right moment. And Davis becoming an official symbol, or martyr if you will would be JUST the right time.

Can't you just envision Fox News' Todd Starnes giving us all sorts of personal details about Davis which would make her sound like a latter day June Cleaver.  Or O'Reilly, Hannity, or other Fox News mentalities having one-sided discussions supporting her with like-minded pundits. Or Greta Van Susteren, Andrea Tanatros, Megyn Kelly, or Glen Gutfield finding insignificant reasons having nothing to do with the subject at hand to throw a little sympathy her way.

Then there would be the columns, probably already written and ready to be inserted in prominent publications like The Washington Post and Politico by conservative think tanks and publications such as the Heritage Foundation or the National Review.

And let's not forget the public events at state houses and stadiums filled with self-righteous evangelicals all bamboozled by speakers like Sen. Ted Cruz, Rev. Franklin Graham, or Family Research Council president Tony Perkins with their lies of how Christians are supposedly under attack and how churches and pastors will be "next."

Who cares about the fact that Kim Davis is a government official who feels that she is above the law. Who care that this controversy is her own doing. The optics of her so-called martyrdom would be all that matters.

 I doubt the outcome of all of this would be the elimination of marriage equality, but  it would have the potential to galvanize those against lgbt equality in general on such a scale that it would have detrimental consequences on other battles we are fighting, including that of preventing the bullying of our children, stopping attacks against the transgender community, and securing anti-discrimination ordinances in housing, employment, etc.

And also, just in time for the 2016 elections. How very convenient .

Like I stated before, this is solely my opinion. Kim Davis is willfully allowing herself to manipulated via her religious beliefs.  The lgbt community, in spite of our righteous indignation, should also have a care to stop and take in the entire situation at hand.

Sooner or later, Davis will either follow the law or be removed.  The point here is seeing and especially pointing out how her situation is less about religious beliefs and more about the desperation of a cynical group obsessed with stopping lgbt equality anyway they can by exploiting anyone they can.


2 comments:

glendenb said...

I would add one thought - Davis and the Liberty Counsel folks are trying to create a major confrontation. They're trying to force the issue to get Davis arrested for contempt of court or some other charge.

FWIW, I don't doubt the sincerity of her religious convictions. The problem is that she's found herself allied with a group that wants her to be arrested. She probably would have come around on her own - issuing marriage licenses and doing her job. Actually competent attorneys would have worked with her to help her find a way to do her job. Instead, she's being fed a narrative in which she is some sort of latter day Christian martyr and hero.

Scott S said...

The optics are that they really want her to be jailed, which is why the plaintiffs indicated in their suit for contempt of court that they only wanted her to be fined, not jailed. But the antigays out there want to be seen as having one of theirs jailed for being a person of faith (nevermind that she's been divorced several times). They want to make optics out of this but lets hope they don't succeed, she merely has to pay a stiff fine.