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Title: Kentucky clerk still won't issue same-sex marriage licenses
Source:
Associated Press
URL Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie ... AULT&CTIME=2015-09-01-08-52-48
Published: Sep 1, 2015
Author: Claire Valofaro
Post Date: 2015-09-01 10:04:38 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 28895
Comments: 339
A county clerk in Kentucky has again refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, invoking her religious beliefs and "God's authority" - this time in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against her. On Tuesday morning, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis' office denied the licenses to at least two couples. At first, Davis was in her office with the door closed and blinds drawn. But she emerged a few minutes later, telling the couples and the activists gathered there that her office is continuing to deny the licenses "under God's authority." The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene in the case, leaving Davis no legal grounds to refuse to grant the licenses. A district judge could now hold her in contempt of court, which can carry steep fines or jail time. As an elected official, Davis can't be fired. Davis asked David Moore and David Ermold to leave her office after they were denied a license Tuesday morning - the couple's fourth rejection. They refused, surrounded by reporters and cameras. "We're not leaving until we have a license," Ermold said. "Then you're going to have a long day," Davis told him. From the back of the room, Davis' supporters said: "Praise the Lord! ... Stand your ground." Other activists shouted that Davis is a bigot and told her: "Do your job." Davis has said her deeply held Christian beliefs don't let her endorse gay marriages. She stopped issuing all marriage licenses in the days after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the nation. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her personal religious faith. A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, and an appeals court upheld that decision. Her lawyers with the Liberty Counsel filed a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking that they grant her "asylum for her conscience." Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 6th district, referred Davis' request to the full court, which denied the stay without comment. After Tuesday's denials, the rejected couples' supporters called the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on their behalf. They asked that the attorneys file that day to have Davis held in contempt. Shortly after Davis' remarks in her office, the sheriff's office cleared the room and building of those gathered to support both sides of the issue. The two groups lined up on the lawn, on either side of the courthouse entrance to chant at each other. Davis' supporters have told her to "stand firm," while gay-rights activists shouted "do your job." Randy Smith, leading the group supporting Davis, said he knows following their instruction to "stand firm" might mean Davis goes to jail. "But at the end of the day, we have to stand before God, which has higher authority than the Supreme Court," he said. Ermold hugged Moore, his partner of 17 years, and they cried and swayed as they left the clerk's office. Davis' supporters marched by, chanting. "I feel sad, I feel devastated," Ermold said. "I feel like I've been humiliated on such a national level, I can't even comprehend it." 
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#37. To: cranky (#0)
Kim Davis - thrice divorced, is invoking "her" religious beliefs.... What would be the reaction if she were Muslim? What a circus.
What would be the reaction if she were Muslim? What a circus. Hey stupid. She was divorced before she became a christian. So take your faggot talking points and shove them up Petes ass.
That is my understanding as well. 17 This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19 who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: 22 that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. Now, in the eyes of the Father our past sins are forgiven and washed clean as the Father now looks on the Born of the Spirit Christian and sees His Son Jesus Christ and His Righteousness. But the sins and failures of our past do have temporal (earthly) consequences and challenges. The sin is forgiven and forgotten by God. However, let's say man was married had an affair and got another woman pregnant. She has the child. That man still has the temporal challenges and consequences of the affair with regards to his marriage and also the responsibility to provide for the child conceived and born in adultery. Sin forgiven for the repentant sinner coming to Christ. The consequences of sin in this earthly life remain with us. Good example from the Bible is King David's adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah. David and Bathsheba suffered the temporal consequences of their sin, yet God quickly forgave them.
Unless the Christian is unforgiving of the sins of others. Then the Father recalls the sins and punishes the Christian using the measure by which the Christian measured. Recall that in the parable of the unforgiving servant, the servant had ALREADY BEEN FORGIVEN everything by the ruler, but then after his forgiveness he went out and was himself brutally unforgiving. The ruler had that man hauled BACK before him, UN-forgave the forgiveness, and threw the man into the torture chamber BECAUSE he had been unforgiving. And Jesus said that the Father will do exactly that to you. So in fact your sins are forgiven, and the Father wants to forgive them, but they are never completely gone, and if the Christian defies God's commandment of mercy and forgiveness, then God brings to bear his commandment and promise stated by Jesus - the sins are then recalled by God, and the man is judged by the measure by which he judged. The ONLY WAY to be forgiven your sins is by being forgiving and merciful to other men. The Christian who is baptized, loves God and is "saved" and forgiven, but who then is harsh and unforgiving, is judged by the unforgiving standard that he himself has set, and is thrown into the flames at the end. Jesus promised this. "What good does it do you to say that you follow me if you do not keep my commandments?" - Jesus Christians keep trying to make it easier than it is. It is not easy. The path is confining and narrow and few find it or stay on it. Christians who remain men seeking the power to judge and dominate have failed to listen to Jesus, and have doomed themselves to Gehenna. Forgiveness and mercy to other men is required for your own salvation. You are a sinner - all of your sins are forgiven IF you follow Jesus. Following Jesus means doing what he said. He said that God will forgive you all of your sins if, and only if, you forgive other men all of theirs. If you do not, you will not be forgiven. And the example Jesus gave directly on point showed the ruler REVOKING the complete forgiveness he had just given to a man BECAUSE that man went out and was unforgiving to other men. And Jesus said that the Father would do EXACTLY the same thing to every Christian who is not forgiving. Unforgiving Christians go to hell. There is no heaven for those who refuse to forgive. Because the degree of forgiveness that men have for other men sets the standard by which God forgives them. If you want to be forgiven every sin, you must forgive every sin. God is asking nothing more than you are asking of him. Jesus said that swearing oaths was from the Devil. Christians should never swear oaths. Traditions that say otherwise are Satanic. To swear an oath with your hand on the Bible is to give God the finger - he says IN that Bible: DO NOT SWEAR AT ALL. So, why is the Christian standing there defying God, invoking God's presence to do an evil act. The Christians Yes is all he should give. And if a state DEMANDS an oath, it is demanding an evil act. Whoever and whatever DEMANDS an oath is an evil organization, not a good one, for it demands an explicit act of evil. God's words are clear and repeated, and they are to be taken literally. That strips away a lot of tradition and law. What is left is remarkably free. And it is a struggle for God to KEEP it free, by throwing down all attempts to regulate men that exceed the regulations that God placed on men. God did not give men the power to regulate other men more closely than he regulates them. So when men try, it is always evil by definition, and Christians should never cooperate with them. Christians should start in their own lives - forgiving all. And in their families, not exercising excessive harshness, and teaching the truth. And Christians should force their churches to drop all traditions contrary to God, and to stop teaching traditions that are contrary to God. And Christians should stop giving financial support to any Church that will not drop EVERY error. There is no excuse for error. Error is what defies God. It is a defiance to ADD things to God's law. Because God's law is so short, if Christians just do that they will find themselves in unity. And they will have the Holy Spirit with them always. When a man puts his hand on the Bible and swears and oath before God, he is giving Jesus and the Father the finger. How much "Holy Spirit" is there in that act? If a man thinks he is filled with spirit as he does it, that merely shows how easily deceived men are by the actions of spirits.
Jesus said: 24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” So I ask...Is your hypothetical 'christian' who is a wicked jerk disobeying God's Love Commands have "in them" the love of God? What's God's part in all of this? Just words on stone or paper, or does He really change, transform, make us new creatures by His Grace and Mercy? The answer is, God does do the work of regeneration in our lives: 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Jeremiah 31: 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” The result of 'saved by God's Grace, through faith' is a regenerated soul. Are you implying the wicked servant was a regenerated soul? I know you avoid Paul's epistles because He is not God. But I do believe his epistles and the epistles of the original apostles are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul, Peter, John et. al. claim such so we either believe them or reject them as false prophets. Because God is not a God of confusion. Just wanted to posit that disclaimer before I quote Paul. What would be Paul's advice for the wicked servant who would not forgive? 5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?— unless indeed you are disqualified.
You are reading Paul to cancel Jesus. Jesus said explicitly, as commandments, that to be forgiven your sins you MUST forgive the sins of other men, and that if you don't, you SHALL NOT be forgiven your sins by God either. Further, he gave a whole parable on it that explicitly and directly said that God will do the same thing to you if you do not forgive. If you do not follow Jesus, you are not forgiven your sins. If you do not forgive others their trespasses, you are not forgiven your sins. Following Jesus alone is not enough, because if you are not merciful and do not forgive other men your sins, Jesus has said your are not forgiven. I understand this desire to see a status: I've converted, and therefore. But Jesus makes it clear to converted, baptized Churches that salvation is only for those who continue to do the deeds he's required. Otherwise, spewed out of the mouth.
Following Jesus alone is not enough, because if you are not merciful and do not forgive other men your sins, Jesus has said your are not forgiven. "Following Jesus" -- isn't it a bit more than that? Isn't it our belief in Jesus' promise that our sin is covered by His blood along with our repentance as the sinners that we ALL that we're promised Eternal Life? That's called "Grace." If anyone believes they are at any second or minute in their lives "sinless" by their own volition, they are believing a lie. EVEN IF we accept your premise that we will NOT "forgiven" by Jesus because we haven't "forgiven others," what about all the other sins still cluttering our tab? Sin is sin. You're presuming a categorical criteria of sin as "acceptable/non-acceptable" before the throne of Judgement. As Red has already pointed out -- as believers in the blood of Jesus -- we are either forgiven by the Grace of Jesus for the entire tab...or aren't. At the moment we expire, the flesh remains filthy in the eyes of the Lord without being washed in the blood of the lamb. I understand this desire to see a status: I've converted, and therefore. But Jesus makes it clear to converted, baptized Churches that salvation is only for those who continue to do the deeds he's required. Otherwise, spewed out of the mouth. ARE there some whose walk in Christ is done so haphazardly? Seemingly hypocrites? Of course. But I won't presume to know their heart or judge that "status" -- that's up to the Lord. "Log/eye" applies here. The Faithful are not concerned with status" other than growing as a Christian and knowing that Jesus has indeed reserved a room at our Father's "mansion." As to deeds, we've debated this countless times...now +1; NO number of "required" OR "good deeds" will EVER equal nor supersede what is ONLY the Grace of God that washes away the sin of man. That's not some sins, but ALL, brother.
The grace of God washes away sin, yes. Indeed, grace alone. To be in that grace you must follow Jesus. Following Jesus means you must DO certain stuff, and NOT do certain other stuff. Otherwise you are not following Jesus. And if you are not following Jesus, you are not in a state of grace. One of the things he said you have to DO to be in a state of grace is to forgive other people their sins. Jesus said that this is a prerequisite to be forgiven your own. It's not optional. Forgive and be forgiven. Refuse to forgive, and you're not forgiven, because you're not obeying Jesus, and therefore are not in a state of grace, and do not have faith. If you have faith, you follow. If you do not follow, you do not have faith. To follow means to do what he said. He said so. He judges by deeds. He said that too.
There are no replies to Comment # 259. End Trace Mode for Comment # 259.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestA county clerk in Kentucky has again refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, invoking her religious beliefs and "God's authority"
#172. To: Jameson (#37)
Kim Davis - thrice divorced, is invoking "her" religious beliefs....
#185. To: A K A Stone (#172)
She was divorced before she became a christian.
Ephesians 4:
#190. To: redleghunter (#185)
Now, in the eyes of the Father our past sins are forgiven and washed clean
#200. To: Vicomte13, liberator, GarySpFc (#190)
The ONLY WAY to be forgiven your sins is by being forgiving and merciful to other men. The Christian who is baptized, loves God and is "saved" and forgiven, but who then is harsh and unforgiving, is judged by the unforgiving standard that he himself has set, and is thrown into the flames at the end. Jesus promised this.
John 17:
Ezekiel 36:
2 Corinthians 13:
#203. To: redleghunter (#200)
(Edited)
#246. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter, GarySpFc (#203)
If you do not follow Jesus, you are not forgiven your sins. If you do not forgive others their trespasses, you are not forgiven your sins.
#259. To: Liberator (#246)
Replies to Comment # 259.
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