Reports from near the first capital of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Montgomery, Alabama, show that LGBT couples in the Heart of Dixie, the state’s nickname, are being denied marriage licenses based on clerks emboldened by the momentary misguided political support surrounding superstar anti-marriage clerk Kim Davis.
Davis, a lifelong Democrat, recently captured headlines by politically switching to the GOP. What is it, I wonder, about the party of Abraham Lincoln, or is it the former party of Lincoln Ms. Davis finds so attractive?
Davis declares the Democratic Party left her behind, philosophically speaking, some time ago. Republicans departing their party, like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the same. Likewise, former Democratic US Senator Joe Lieberman, the losing Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000. Bloomberg and Lieberman had greater philosophical disagreements with their respective political parties than Davis.
Davis is the latest voice of “reason” to disagree with the United State Supreme Court decision ruling same-sex marriage legal nationally. The Kentucky marriage bureau clerk cites a strong religious objection to putting her sterling signature on legal marriages for couples about whom she objects should be united in Holy Matrimony by the State of Kentucky.
Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, has a popular motto: United We Stand, Divided We Fall. It is ironic Davis, possible memoir title “I am Kim!” does not understand the concept of unity and instead preaches division in Rowan County, Kentucky.
It is division, though, heard round the Deep South. Alabama marriage clerks, emboldened by Davis, and perhaps desirous of her cable TV fame now are “standing up” for their deep religious faith by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. This harkens back to Alabama’s troubled, complicated, and longstanding enforcement of segregation, or separation of the races.
My public Alabama high school did not integrate until the early 1970s despite federal laws and US Supreme Court decisions that rendered the poison of segregation illegal. Once integration occurred, private segregation academies blossomed to prevent the wind of change from fully ending segregation.
My white classmates left the public school system because their parents felt such an education would be worthless once integration was implemented. Teachers, they feared, would have to dumb down public education to accommodate black students who they felt were biologically suited for the cotton field, not the classroom. My parents took the opposite view that education for all would improve and racist tendencies of teachers would pass away. It is my experience my late parents were right.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s was really about sex, racists in Alabama argued. If segregation fell, black men would “go after,” in a sexual way, the white women. Word that then U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, Republican South Carolina, had decades earlier “gone after” a young black girl in a sexual way was still largely a secret save for the Thurmond family, including his mixed race daughter.
Integration, racists argued, would destabilize society, especially white society in the Deep South. They used the dumb down argument against marriage. Interracial marriage was sinful, and it was “against the teachings of Jesus Christ” one elderly cotton mill worker told me.
“It’s in the Bible, son,” the old guy said.
“What page?” I asked.
“Never you mind what page,” the old guy, angered, said grumpily.
My late father told me the Klan would cite the Bible to justify lynching and bombing churches, like the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, and crude structures that were called schools for black kids.
Interracial marriage, the racists and those sad people who believed them, would result in mongrelization of the white race. At times, I heard adults say human race implying blacks not human. Strange days indeed, to quote a John Lennon lyric from “Nobody Told Me.”
Marriage licenses are being denied to all couples in several Alabama counties, probably because Kim Davis’ religious faith has greater standing in Alabama than does a legal decision issued by the US Supreme Court.
Obviously, same-sex marriage won’t result in mongrels unless the couples are of different races or want a child from a straight interracial couple. This sort of thinking, though, is ridiculous and amounts to state planning or control of people’s lives.
Mongrels of 2015 are those who distort logic, law, and religion. Kim Davis is temporary spokesperson, or prophet, for the mongrels.
The English Standard version of Matthew 7:15 advises: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” This passage applies to those who work to divide our nation when unity is needed.
Human Rights Advocate Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong diplomat for dignity for all people. In a remarkable life spanning the civil rights movement to today’s human rights struggles, he stands as a voice for the voiceless. A prolific writer, he documents history’s wrongs and the struggle for dignity to provide a roadmap to a more humane future. Learn more at www.HumanRightsIssues.com
