Looks like someone enjoyed her time in jail

Dannyalcatraz said:

Well...yeah, but the phrase is never used by the people who are happy with the verdict, which is why I said what I said.

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I used it, on this very topic, and I support and advocate for homosexual marriage. This ruling got the right result, but otherwise was absolutely horrible. It used arguments that rest on emotion and not jurisprudence ( and there is good and clear jurisprudence to make a proper ruling) and it will have unintended consequences and problems due to its poor construction. It was a case of activist judges doing the expedient thing rather than the right thing, even as I was happy for the outcome.

Umbran said:

And, claiming the Freedom of Worship clause to herself, but denying the Establishment Clause to others.

Something that many seem to miss, is that she's not an "employee". She's *part of the government*, and that constrains her rights. This is beyond the question of whether a baker can be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding. If she puts her personal interpretation of God's law into policy in her workplace, she's in pretty direct violation of the Establishment Clause.

George Takei had a piece on this. He's not a lawyer, but much of the reasoning is sound. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/14/how-kim-davis-violated-the-first-amendment.html

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No, this isn't a violation of the Establishment clause. If she applied a religious test for getting a license, that's a violation of the Establishment clause. But using her own moral conscious (whether you agree with it out not, and I don't), even if based on her religion, is not. The Establishment cause doesn't prohibit any religious reasons in government, it prohibited the establishment of religious requirements for the operation of government. To clarify that, that means rules, laws, and practices that favor a religion it set of religious beliefs, NOT that elected officials cannot make decisions within those authority on religious beliefs.

Dannyalcatraz said:

It is only a loophole in the sense that, by doing so, she is attempting to avoid the claim that she is singling out gays.

It isn't a loophole in the sense that she's denying guaranteed fundamental Constitutional rights to everyone, and not performing the duties of her office. IOW, even while attempting to appear non-discriminatory, she still runs afoul of other laws.

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Thing is, that rights are negative with respect to government. The governed can't deny you a marriage certificate while granting it to others based on protected class markers. That doesn't mean the government must issue a license. Marriage is still controlled my state law, and in this case the law reads 'may issue' not 'must issue.'. This means that it's perfectly legal to deny all certificates, even if the underlying reason is discriminatory. It's within the scope of the law, and the right to marriage doesn't override because it's a right to not be discriminated against, not an absolute right to be able to marry ( you can't Mary your sister, frex).

That said, she's clearly in violation of the intent of the position, but that's a matter for the voters and/or governed to recall/impeach her for it. This is the train that no one is addressing her for not issueng licenses.

Umbran said:

I think that, in the process of providing services to citizens, they must *interact* with the citizens - there is information to be distributed, choices to be made, and so on. I think that ought to be done taking the reality of human nature into account. I would like the government's approaches to things be reality-based.

I don't think there is anything about, "treating citizens as little more than disposable resources," anywhere in that order. I think that is something you are inserting, not found in the text.



Understanding human psychology is useful in determining what services you should offer, and how to present them and design processes around them so that people understand what is being offered, make well-informed choices, and can easily get the services they need.

The irony being - if they had a better handle on human behavior, they might have been able to present this order in a way that would more likely avoid reactions like the one you're displaying here.

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Re: psych experimentation:

I'd be fine with this if it was entirely transparent: what's being done and why. It's not, and that's the problem.

All government actions should be considered under the metric of imagining your opposing political viewpoints having complete control of that policy and what they could/would do with it. If you're still okay with it after that, cool. In this case, imagine the religious right doing it, or the TEA party, or the communist party, or the socialist party, or the Donald. Still sound kosher?

Turns out Kim Davis does have gay friends, and he is angry with her.

Ovinomancer said:

I used it, on this very topic, and I support and advocate for homosexual marriage. This ruling got the right result, but otherwise was absolutely horrible. It used arguments that rest on emotion and not jurisprudence ( and there is good and clear jurisprudence to make a proper ruling) and it will have unintended consequences and problems due to its poor construction. It was a case of activist judges doing the expedient thing rather than the right thing, even as I was happy for the outcome.

No, this isn't a violation of the Establishment clause. If she applied a religious test for getting a license, that's a violation of the Establishment clause. But using her own moral conscious (whether you agree with it out not, and I don't), even if based on her religion, is not. The Establishment cause doesn't prohibit any religious reasons in government, it prohibited the establishment of religious requirements for the operation of government. To clarify that, that means rules, laws, and practices that favor a religion it set of religious beliefs, NOT that elected officials cannot make decisions within those authority on religious beliefs.

Thing is, that rights are negative with respect to government. The governed can't deny you a marriage certificate while granting it to others based on protected class markers. That doesn't mean the government must issue a license. Marriage is still controlled my state law, and in this case the law reads 'may issue' not 'must issue.'. This means that it's perfectly legal to deny all certificates, even if the underlying reason is discriminatory. It's within the scope of the law, and the right to marriage doesn't override because it's a right to not be discriminated against, not an absolute right to be able to marry ( you can't Mary your sister, frex).

That said, she's clearly in violation of the intent of the position, but that's a matter for the voters and/or governed to recall/impeach her for it. This is the train that no one is addressing her for not issueng licenses.

Re: psych experimentation:

I'd be fine with this if it was entirely transparent: what's being done and why. It's not, and that's the problem.

All government actions should be considered under the metric of imagining your opposing political viewpoints having complete control of that policy and what they could/would do with it. If you're still okay with it after that, cool. In this case, imagine the religious right doing it, or the TEA party, or the communist party, or the socialist party, or the Donald. Still sound kosher?

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You would be hard pressed to prove that a government official, acting based on the teachings of a particular religion, isn't violating the Establishment Clause.

As to the 'manipulation', the word 'marketing' has been used correctly.

Ryujin said:

You would be hard pressed to prove that a government official, acting based on the teachings of a particular religion, isn't violating the Establishment Clause.

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Perhaps if they weren't elected. But she is and that's a big difference. As an elected official you can loudly proclaim your faith, display it publicly, and even cite it as the basis for your decisions. So long as you do not create the need or appearance of the need to follow a religion or religious belief set as a cost of doing business with the government, that's peachy.

The establishment clause doesn't prohibit religion in government, it prohibited the requirement for religion on government. Officials in government can act religiously in many regards.

The is doubly true in this case, where the actor in question (brain fart on the name right now) isn't requiring a test of faith to get a certificate, but instead is citing her faith for why she's discriminating against a protected class. This has nothing to do with the Establishment clause, it's just garden variety discrimination. That's bad enough, no need to stretch for an Establishment clause violation that doesn't exist.

Ryujin said:

As to the 'manipulation', the word 'marketing' has been used correctly.

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Pulled this out as a separate discussion.

I don't follow you, are you agreeing with me, or do you think it's fine for government to get into marketing? Please answer the question as if the Donald is sitting in the White House with full TEA party supermajorities in each house.

Ovinomancer said:

Perhaps if they weren't elected. But she is and that's a big difference. As an elected official you can loudly proclaim your faith, display it publicly, and even cite it as the basis for your decisions. So long as you do not create the need or appearance of the need to follow a religion or religious belief set as a cost of doing business with the government, that's peachy.

The establishment clause doesn't prohibit religion in government, it prohibited the requirement for religion on government. Officials in government can act religiously in many regards.

The is doubly true in this case, where the actor in question (brain fart on the name right now) isn't requiring a test of faith to get a certificate, but instead is citing her faith for why she's discriminating against a protected class. This has nothing to do with the Establishment clause, it's just garden variety discrimination. That's bad enough, no need to stretch for an Establishment clause violation that doesn't exist.

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No, it really isn't different. She is citing religion as a reason not to follow law, that states equality of treatment is mandatory and not optional. She is a representative of government. Elected, appointed, or run of the mill bureaucrat is immaterial. As a representative of government it rises to the level of Constitutional protection.

Ovinomancer said:

Pulled this out as a separate discussion.

I don't follow you, are you agreeing with me, or do you think it's fine for government to get into marketing? Please answer the question as if the Donald is sitting in the White House with full TEA party supermajorities in each house.

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I'm disagreeing with you. Marketing may be manipulative, by its very nature, but it isn't outright manipulation. An example of manipulation would be the various untruths used by the Bush government to support the invasion of a sovereign nation, that had no part in the acts that were attributed to it. Putting a colourful picture and some catchy phrase on a pamphlet doesn't rise to that level.

Ryujin said:

No, it really isn't different. She is citing religion as a reason not to follow law, that states equality of treatment is mandatory and not optional. She is a representative of government. Elected, appointed, or run of the mill bureaucrat is immaterial. As a representative of government it rises to the level of Constitutional protection.

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Yes, it is very much different. Let me give you a counterfactual to show my point.

Imagine that the law says that homosexuals cannot marry. Further imagine that a county clerk began issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples in violation of the law. The clerk cites her faith as the reason she began issuing licenses. God told her to. This is not a violation of the Establishment clause either.

The establishment clause states what can't happen --government cannot enshrine a religion or make a religious belief a condition of doing business with the government. These are actions, not thoughts or motivations. A law can be passed, frex, that has a religious motivation so long as the law doesn't require adherence to that religious belief. Blue laws are exactly this, and are 100% Constitutional.

The actor here is committing a crime, specifically discrimination. The Establishment clause doesn't kick in because she's doing it based on her religion. That's irrelevant to the issue, and no defense of the criminal activity.

Ovinomancer said:

Yes, it is very much different. Let me give you a counterfactual to show my point.

Imagine that the law says that homosexuals cannot marry. Further imagine that a county clerk began issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples in violation of the law. The clerk cites her faith as the reason she began issuing licenses. God told her to. This is not a violation of the Establishment clause either.

The establishment clause states what can't happen --government cannot enshrine a religion or make a religious belief a condition of doing business with the government. These are actions, not thoughts or motivations. A law can be passed, frex, that has a religious motivation so long as the law doesn't require adherence to that religious belief. Blue laws are exactly this, and are 100% Constitutional.

The actor here is committing a crime, specifically discrimination. The Establishment clause doesn't kick in because she's doing it based on her religion. That's irrelevant to the issue, and no defense of the criminal activity.

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Flipping a situation on its head and than saying, "See, it doesn't make it so!" doesn't make it so

Ryujin said:

I'm disagreeing with you. Marketing may be manipulative, by its very nature, but it isn't outright manipulation. An example of manipulation would be the various untruths used by the Bush government to support the invasion of a sovereign nation, that had no part in the acts that were attributed to it. Putting a colourful picture and some catchy phrase on a pamphlet doesn't rise to that level.

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So your argument here is that marketing never descends to lying or half truths? We must be using different definitions. You are using the least harmful version for your arguments, I'm using the most harmful. Let's not forget that marketing when done by government is a euphemism for propaganda.