An interesting subject of discussion the last few days has been the County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, Kim Davis.  She has made national news by refusing to issue a marriage license to a homosexual couple, not once, but four times.  She now sits in a Rowan County jail, put there after being held in contempt by a Federal judge.  Incidentally, Rowan County is about 50 minutes from my own hometown, Huntington, West Virginia, both of which are located smack in the middle of Appalachia.  So perhaps some may want to simply accuse Mrs. Davis of being merely a bumpkin, perhaps me also, in opposing homosexual marriage.  Moreover, I confess to some admiration for her stand.  She has refused to compromise her religious conscience and that is what all Christians cannot afford ever to compromise if we are to be “ourselves.”  The conscience is after all part of the heart of the self, not just some appendage or function.  That is not to say the conscience is always right.  It can be dulled and it can be impaired by sin.

Now that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with the decision she made, but I am definitely sympathetic.  But then my conscience may (I say, may) be more sensitive.  How should Christians think about all this? In Matthew 22: 15, Jesus says we should “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”  The first question is what does belong to Caesar, the government?  Mrs. Davis is a public official, part of whose official function is to issue marriage licenses.  The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage (5-4 decision in the Obergefell decision).  In a strictly legal sense then, homosexual applicant couples for marriage licenses now have a right to have them issued, even though I and many others deplore that decision.  Mrs. Davis then violated her responsibility in refusing to issue the licenses.  She is moreover an elected official who cannot be removed from office except by impeachment by (in this case) the Kentucky state legislature—who by the way will not I predict impeach her.

Mrs. Davis now has these choices: (1) back down and issue licenses; (2) continue to refuse and accept the consequences or (3) resign.  If her conscience is truly offended she cannot back down in good conscience, even if it might be argued that she could issue the licenses without any conscience problem.  She apparently believes that would implicate her in sin.  If that is the case, to change now would itself be sin, as Paul states in the New Testament.  On the other hand, she is violating her oath of office, and therefore not rendering proper duty to “Caesar, “or, in this case, to a subset of the people too.  It seems the only way out of her conscience dilemma is to resign.  That seems reasonable, though I do wish accommodations can be made for those with genuine conscience objections in cases like this.  One of my colleagues mentioned that if such accommodations were made, every slight objection by a public official having ministerial duties would become a major problem.  That may well be true, but I would rather have that than a trampling of religious conscience.  The Kentucky legislature has the authority to create religious accommodations for conscience objectors.  I think they should and create legal mechanisms to carry out the duties of the objector in other ways.  Perhaps a judge could grant the license, or another (deputy) clerk, or a sheriff.  It doesn’t seem too difficult to find someone willing to fulfill such a ministerial duty.

Finally, what about the jail sentence as the contempt punishment?  This seems way beyond the pale.  A fine maybe, but not putting Mrs. Davis in jail, ostensibly, unless and until she agrees to grant marriage licenses to the homosexual couples.  I don’t know what the judge’s motive is in this case, but on the surface it looks like a desire to stamp out opposition to issuing homosexual marriage licenses.  He may or may not succeed in this case, but the issue is far from decided at large.

Christians need to pray, to find every way possible, if they are in public office, to accommodate the current law, but if they believe they are compromising their consciences they cannot simply obey and sweep that under the rug, as it were.  But they may also be required to accept the consequences of their refusal.  We may not have thought that we could have reached such a point, but it is here.  We should know what we believe and why we believe it, and have good reasons to our beliefs, rooted in the very Word of God.  And then, we must take our stand if necessary.