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Ethics and Morality
Kim Davis, Pope Francis, and the Moral Ambiguity of Courage
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.” — Oscar Wilde
Posted October 13, 2015
Exactly what was so critical about Kim Davis’ court case that Pope Francis chose, secretly, to squeeze her into his already crowded U.S. schedule? On the surface at least, Davis’ illegally defiant behavior as a county clerk in Kentucky would hardly seem exemplary. And it did lead to her having to do jail time. Yet many who tilt to the far right on the political/religious spectrum have championed her, and continue to do so. Others, however—typically embodying a far more secular viewpoint—inveigh against her fundamentalist arguments in behalf of “religious liberty.” Consequently, this might be a good time to review both sides of the ongoing (and at times strident) legal and ethical controversy that Davis embodies.
Let’s first briefly review the course of events set in motion by Davis’ religious zealousness: her insistence that she was simply following the authority, or will, of God—a higher power for her to answer to than her country’s law.
It all begins not with Kim Davis (married, by the way, no fewer than four times herself) but with the Supreme Court’s finally catching up with history this past summer and ruling (in Obergefell v. Hodges) that according to the 14th Amendment same-sex couples have the right to marry. Deliberately disregarding this decision on religious grounds, Davis—who belongs to an Apostolic Christian church, a form of Pentecostalism, but whose parents are Catholic—used her governmental position to actively block such unions. And, as a result of ignoring numerous court orders to abide by what was now the law of the land, was for five days imprisoned.
Predictably, the judge’s decision, in the eyes of the religious right, instantly conferred on Davis the status of “folk hero.” Courageously fighting the good fight to make God’s will sovereign on planet earth, many of her supporters perceived her (with unquestionable grandiosity) as a “martyr.” And in a sense, Davis did “volunteer” herself for incarceration as a way of formally confirming her resistance to—if not outright condemnation of—the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Moreover, her attorney praised her in court as a “prisoner of conscience,” characterizing Davis as the ultimate victim, a Jew living in Nazi Germany—even going so far as to invoke memories of concentration camp gas chambers.
However, it must be added that regardless of Davis’ religious convictions—which, as a matter of personal morality, she is fully entitled to—she did break the law in (1) discriminating against same-sex couples by refusing to grant them marriage licenses, and (2) failing to perform her professional duties, which, as a county employee, she has literally sworn under oath to carry out. So the question becomes whether Davis even deserved to stay in office (which as of this date she still holds) when she’s refused to subscribe to its dictates whenever they interfere with her deeply felt spiritual commitments.
How much, that is, should her religious concerns render her exempt from carrying out the duties required by her place of employment? In good conscience, might she not have needed to resign when her deeply felt religious obligations rendered her unable to do her job? When they clashed with the civil rights of others that, in her elected post, she’d already sworn to uphold? Or, as a “conscientious objector,” ought she be allowed to fulfill her professional functions only when they don’t conflict with what she contends is the Rule of God (i.e., vs. the rule of law)?
Those who view as spurious Davis’ arguments about the Constitution’s historically accommodating its citizens’ religious rights argue that what Davis is asserting really isn’t religious freedom but religious “entitlement” or “favoritism.” For her position blatantly denies others their freedom to believe and behave on the basis of what they, personally, hold to be right and fair. As author Meredith Thompson duly notes, the first Amendment is designed to protect the free practice of religion, not to preferentially affirm one set of beliefs over another (see “Religious Exceptionalism and the Law,” TheHumanist.com, 09/08/15).
Thompson goes on to state: “Davis used her authority . . . to enforce her standards above [the] law—all while continuing to collect compensation from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. . . . Although Davis has the right to comport her religious standards outside of work, as a civil servant, she has no moral or constitutional right to deny services to members of the public who are rightly entitled to them.” Another writer, Bill Berkowitz, in a piece called “Corruption of the Concept of Religious Freedom,” pointedly refers to “the bastardization of the concept of ‘religious freedom.’” Berkowitz also cites Rob Boston (author of Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You the Right to Tell Other People What to Do, Prometheus Bks, 2014), who has argued that the extreme position of Davis’ lawyer, Matthew Staver, is regrettably standard for the Christian Right—postulating “privilege for fundamentalist Christians and second-class status for everyone else.” (Buzzflash.com, 10/01/15)
One (of many) commenters (see under Thompson’s article) summed it up this way: “[Davis] can be an outspoken evangelical Christian or a public servant, but in a nation that supposedly respects the beliefs of all, she can’t be both.”
So, onward to Davis’ meeting with Pope Francis. Their brief dialogue, as reported, was arranged by the Vatican and later described by many news organizations as taking place without the Pope’s actually having any precise knowledge of what Davis’ situation involved, or the ambiguous nature of her case (e.g., see “Pope Blindsided by Meeting with Kim Davis,” in Daily Kos.com, 10/02/15). Contrary to Davis’ supporters’ claim about the Pope’s fervent desire to support her cause, Vatican spokesperson, the Rev. Federico Lombardi took care to (fudgingly?) downplay this meeting: “The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation . . . and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.”
According to Davis’ own depiction of her talk with the Pope (who spoke to her in English), the “Holy Father” said to her “thank you for your courage,” and told her to “stay strong.” Understandably, many people were completely caught off guard by such statements, seemingly regressive, or reactionary, because this, presumably, was the same progressive Pope who earlier had voiced an unprecedented Vatican tolerance in responding to the issue of gay priests by expressing the opinion: “Who am I to judge?”
On the other hand, Pope Francis has articulated a general principle that, out of context, might appear rather left-leaning. Asked by Terry Moran of ABC News on his plane trip home about government officials refusing to carry out their duties because of religious objections to same-sex marriage, the Pope responded (rather vaguely and tautologically): “Conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right. Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right has merit, this one does not.’ It is a human right.” Such a declaration would seem unequivocal—except for it’s being so nebulous. It in no way confronts the challenging legal and ethical issues that make Kim Davis’ position so morally ambiguous—and finally, untenable
But what I’d like to focus on here is the Pope’s portrayal of Davis’ defiant behavior as “courageous.” For this designation gets at the essence of the whole problem—which is, at the least, confounding, and at the most downright disturbing.
Courage—or more specifically moral courage—has over time become endowed with all sorts of positive connotations. Yet if we look at the word’s dictionary definition, the actual morality of courage depicts no part of its core meaning. As a descriptor it’s morally neutral. Consider this typical definition (from Dictionary.com): “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.” So, strictly speaking, a criminal might exhibit the same “courageous” qualities as a saint. And, as I quoted Oscar Wilde earlier, “A thing is not necessarily true [or, I should add, virtuous] because a man dies for it.”
Along these lines, here’s how three recent books talk about courage:
“Yet courage can also be used for immoral ends, and even elicited by immoral ideals—witness the courage of the terrorist or Nazi soldier. In such situations we say that a good is being used for evil.” (from Mike W. Martin’s Happiness and the Good Life, Oxford Univ. Press, 2012)
“Courage . . . can exist in wholly immoral people, even someone unmitigatedly diabolical” (from Kevin Timpe & Craig A. Boyd’s Virtues and Their Vices, Oxford Univ. Press, 2014); and lastly,
“What is good about [courage and conscientiousness] need imply no commitment to moral standards, and their possession is consistent with gross immorality. . . . Such non-moral traits can also contribute to success in immoral projects in a way moral virtues cannot.” (from Robert Audi’s Reasons, Rights, and Values, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014)
It may be said that Pope Francis’ positions on many global issues—from poverty and the gross financial inequities in the world, to runaway materialism, to immigration and the great need for more humanitarian charity and compassion, to climate change and the hazards in our environment that urgently need to be addressed, to the heinous moral offense of priests molesting children—are definitely progressive, and laudatory. But on some of today’s most critical social issues his stance remains frustratingly traditional or, well, is still “evolving.”
Shortly before his departure from the U.S., for instance, in leading a mass in Philadelphia, he alluded to God’s revealing Himself through the “covenant of man and woman,” clearly intimating his opposition to same-sex marriage (see Laurie Goodstein and Jim Yardley’s “Pope Francis, the Kentucky Clerk and Culture Wars Revisited,” The New York Times, 09/30/15). And he enunciated this orthodox religious doctrine despite his past inclusive remark about gays that (as already quoted) “Who am I to judge?”
Deeply influenced by Catholic dogma, the Pope can’t help but flounder and resort to hollow-sounding rhetoric when he attempts to elaborate on the matter of human rights, which he may be able only to half-espouse. Yes, Kim Davis might reasonably be said to have courage. And yes, too, she can be perceived as a conscientious objector, a person of conscience. But without considering the specifics of her case—her lawless, discriminatory behavior consciously motivated to deny the rights of others whose beliefs differed from her more “sanctified” theological ideals—the Pope’s defense of her has to be seen as unjustified, or at least questionable. Undoubtedly, it’s steeped in self-contradiction.
Following Oscar Wilde’s incisive observation, the fact that one conscientiously objects to a law doesn’t by itself define their objection as honorable or righteous. And surely not when that law is soundly based on basic democratic and constitutional principles. So, though Kim Davis’ primary allegiance may be to her God (and his presumed authority), as an elected public servant her primary responsibility must be to uphold the rule of law. For if that authority is rebelled against, a government—any government—will end up in shambles.
NOTE 1: An earlier article of mine goes into much greater detail about the controversial matter of religious freedom. It's called "Religious Freedom or Government-Sanctioned Discrimination? Julea Ward vs. Eastern Michigan Univsity" (The Humanist, 04/20/12).
NOTE 2: If you'd like to check out other posts I've written for Psychology Today online—on a broad range of psychological topics—click here.
NOTE 3: If anyone you know might possibly be interested in this subject and/or my treatment of it, kindly send them its link.
© 2015 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.
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