Huckabee Calls For Civil Disobedience, Utterly Misreads MLK, Jr.

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/huckabee-calls-for-civil-disobedience-utterly-misreads-mlk-jr/

BY PETER GATHJE JUNE 28, 2015



Image of a portion of MLK, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963.
Courtesy The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University

Mike Huckabee has joined the ranks of those invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to legitimate civil disobedience in response to the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same sex marriage.

As the former Arkansas governor declared Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week,”

“I don’t think a lot of pastors and Christian schools are going to have a choice. They either are going to follow God, their conscience and what they truly believe is what the scripture teaches them, or they will follow civil law. They will go the path of Dr. Martin Luther King, who in his brilliant essay the ‘Letters from a Birmingham Jail’ reminded us, based on what St. Augustine said, that an unjust law is no law at all. And I do think that we’re going to see a lot of pastors who will have to make this tough decision.”

I am glad Huckabee has read Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” He has, however, not read it very carefully. Dr. King does begin by quoting St. Augustine, but he goes on to draw upon St. Thomas Aquinas to elaborate on what is a just or an unjust law.

more at link

[SamKnause]

1. Ignorance is considered

a virtue among Republicans.

Lying, twisting, or omitting facts

is the norm of Republicans.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, they say or do

surprises me.

[cbayer]

8. Preying on ignorance is a tool used extensively, but

I think it's dangerous to write some of these people off as ignorant. They play ignorant, but they are pretty effective at using it.

[SamKnause]

12. The politicians

are not ignorant.

They are vile and evil.

The people who vote for them are.

They have been lied to.

They are addicted to FOX 'news' and all the FOX

pundits.

They will not listen to any dissenting opinions.

They twist facts to fit their political ideologies or

religious beliefs.

They lack empathy !!!!!

They are so brainwashed they vote against their best

interest.

They lack facts.

I don't think they are interested in facts.

I think they like hating.

It makes them feel superior in some weird way.

[cbayer]

15. I think bigotry is born of a need to feel bigger and better than others.

The republican machine definitely knows how to feed it.

[okasha]

17. I agree,

and that need comes from fear.

[cbayer]

18. Fear and ignorance.

I have found that people have a hard time holding onto their bigotries once they truly know the "others".

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I support Mike Huckabee

...in doing anything that lands Mike Huckabee in an orange jumpsuit for a few years.

[cbayer]

9. Orange is the new hack?

[rurallib]

3. I think Americans who believe that a person has a right to marry whosoever they please

should boycott churches for a month or two.

[cbayer]

7. Should they boycott churches that are solidly in support of GLBT equal and civil rights?

Or should they support those that are doing the right thing?

[trotsky]

4. We can point and laugh at Huckabee and his devoted fans...

but they are dead serious. And they disagree significantly with the notion that "any law that degrades human personality is unjust." They believe quite strongly that homosexuality is a sin against god and the "natural order." It's no trivial task to shake them loose from their deeply held religious beliefs.

And in fact, there is much debate and uncertainty surrounding MLK's views of homosexuality and whether he would have supported marriage equality. Let's not go too crazy with wishful thinking.

But Huck and his deluded followers can engage in civil disobedience all they want - they can REFUSE to marry someone of the same sex! Done!

[Cartoonist]

5. Cherry Picking

Doesn't stop at the Bible.

[underpants]

6. There is a religious exemption in every law that has passed either by Legis. or popular vote

Shut up Huck - he knows full well that there is no dilemma for religous folks

[cbayer]

10. I'm not sure what you mean about exemptions in every law.

Are you talking about religious exemptions and marriage laws?

[underpants]

11. Yes

Every single law exempts religious organizations and individuals from having to perform ceremonies that they feel are against their beliefs AND protects them from litigation.

[cbayer]

13. Got it. I had thought that was the case.

I have never seen anything that would substantiate the claim that people would be forced to marry anyone they didn't want to marry.

[underpants]

14. It's pure drag-out-the-argument nonsense

Polygamy has also been clearly ruled out of any possible further consideration too. That's another of their HEY-but-what-about.... BS points.

[cbayer]

16. I wonder if polygamy is truly off the table.

There are some younger groups that practice polyamory that has nothing to do with religious beliefs.. What is the argument that would prevent them from marrying?

[Starboard Tack]

19. What is the argument against polygamy?

[underpants]

20. Reynolds v United States 1878 - from Wikipedia

Holding
Religious duty was not a suitable defense to a criminal indictment.


George Reynolds was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Mormons, believing that the law unconstitutionally deprived them of their First Amendment right to freely practice their religion, chose to ignore the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act at the time. On the other hand, in subsequent years, efforts had been underway to strengthen the anti-bigamy laws. Eventually, amid the efforts to indict the LDS leadership for bigamy, the First Presidency agreed to furnish a defendant in a test case to be brought before the United States Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of the anti-bigamy law. Reynolds, a secretary in the office of the President of the Church, agreed to serve as the defendant, then provided the attorney numerous witnesses who could testify of his being married to two wives, and was indicted for bigamy by a grand jury on October 23, 1874. In 1875, Reynolds was convicted and sentenced to two years hard labor in prison and a fine of five hundred dollars. In 1876 the Utah Territorial Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

Previously, U.S. Attorney William Carey promised to stop his attempts to indict general authorities during the test case. However when Carey failed to keep his promise and arrested George Q. Cannon, the LDS Church leaders decided that they would no longer cooperate with him.[2]

Prior history
DecisionEdit

The Court

Before the Supreme Court, Reynolds argued that his conviction for bigamy should be overturned on four issues: that it was his religious duty to marry multiple times and the First Amendment protected his practice of his religion; that his grand jury had not been legally constituted; that challenges of certain jurors were improperly overruled; that testimony was not admissible as it was under another indictment.

Religious duty argumentEdit
The Court considered whether Reynolds could use religious belief or duty as a defense. Reynolds had argued that as a Mormon, it was his religious duty as a male member of the church to practice polygamy if possible.

The Court recognized that under the First Amendment, the Congress cannot pass a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. However it held that the law prohibiting bigamy did not meet that standard. The principle that a person could only be married singly, not plurally, existed since the times of King James I of England in English law, upon which United States law was based.

The Court investigated the history of religious freedom in the United States and quoted a letter from Thomas Jefferson in which he wrote that there was a distinction between religious belief and action that flowed from religious belief. The former "lies solely between man and his God," therefore "the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions." The court considered that if polygamy was allowed, someone might eventually argue that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." The Court believed the First Amendment forbade Congress from legislating against opinion, but allowed it to legislate against action.

Other argumentsEdit
Reynolds argued that the grand jury that had indicted him was not legal. United States law at that time required that a grand jury consist of no fewer than 16 persons. The grand jury that indicted Reynolds had only 15 persons. The court rejected this argument because the Utah Territory had passed a law in 1870 under which a grand jury had to consist of only 15 persons.

During his original trial, Reynolds had challenged two jurors, both of whom stated that they had formed an opinion on the guilt or innocence of Reynolds before the trial. The court held that universal education and press reports made it hard to find jurors who had not formed some opinion. It found that Reynolds had failed to meet the requirement that he, as challenger of a juror's objectivity, demonstrate that a juror had developed a real and strong opinion. The prosecution had discharged two potential jurors who refused to say whether or not they were living in polygamy. The Court held that it would not overturn a case based on the legality of challenges to dismissed jurors.

The Court held that evidence Amelia Jane Schofield, Reynold's second wife, gave during an earlier trial of Reynolds for the same offense but under a different indictment was admissible. Schofield could not be found during the second trial and so evidence from the previous trial was used. The Court held that "if a witness is kept away by the adverse party, his testimony, taken on a former trial between the same parties upon the same issues, may be given in evidence". The court held that Reynolds had every opportunity under oath to reveal the whereabouts of Schofield. This was the one point on which Justice Field dissented, finding that the evidence should not have been allowed.

Reynolds had argued that the jury had been improperly instructed by the judge when he told them that they "should consider what are to be the consequences to the innocent victims of this delusion". Reynolds argued that this introduced prejudice to the jury. The Court held that Reynolds had freely admitted that he was a bigamist. All the judge had done was "call the attention of the jury to the peculiar character of the crime" and had done so "not to make them partial, but to keep them

[Warren Stupidity]

21. seriously?

As marriage historian Stephanie Coontz has pointed out, polygyny is less about sex than it is about power. Rich old guys with lots of wives win twice: They have more women to bear them babies and do household work, and they also gain an advantage over other men. After all, in such societies a young man in want of a wife cannot simply woo her. There is too much competition, and he probably has too little to offer. So he winds up having to do work for a more powerful, polygynous man, bringing him gifts and tributes, in hopes of someday being rewarded with one of that man’s many daughters. “Often the subordination of women is in fact also a way of controlling men,” says Coontz, who was not involved in the study out of the University of B.C.

That polygyny is bad for women is not necessarily intuitive. As economist Robert H. Frank has pointed out women in polygynist marriages should have more power because they’re in greater demand, and men should wind up changing more diapers. But historically, polygamy has proved to be yet another setup that screws the XX set. Because there are never enough of them to go around, they wind up being married off younger. Brothers and fathers, realizing how valuable their female relations are, tend to control them more. And, as one would expect, polygynous households foster jealousy and conflict among co-wives. Ethnographic surveys of 69 polygamous cultures “reveals no case where co-wife relations could be described as harmonious,” Henrich writes, with what must be a good dose of understatement.

Children, too, appear to suffer in polygamous cultures. Henrich examines a study comparing 19th-century Mormon households, 45 of them headed by wealthy men, generally with multiple wives, and 45 headed by poorer men, generally with one wife each. What’s surprising is that the children of the poorer men actually fared better, proving more likely to survive to age 15. Granted, this is a small study, but it’s consistent with other studies, including one from Africa showing that the children of monogamous households tend to do better than those from polygynous households in the same communities. Why? Some scholars suspect that polygyny may discourage paternal investment. Men with lots of children and wives are spread too thin, and to make things worse, they’re compiling resources to attract their next wives instead of using it on their existing families.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/01/the_problem_with_polygamy.html

fundamentalist mormon communities toss out their young males, they are known as "lost boys". They routinely arrange marriages between *very young* women and *very old* men, sometimes in violation of pederasty laws. The women in these communities are viewed as valuable property and treated as such and indoctrinated into a system of subordination and submission.

[skepticscott]

22. Yes, but what happens

if someone wants to marry multiple hamsters?

Inquiring vermin want to know.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. you have to buy a lot of very small bicycles.

[Act_of_Reparation]

24. And if your employer won't give you those bikes for free...

...you can march down to the corner shop and buy one yourself, just like everyone else. Amirite?

[Starboard Tack]

25. And your issue with same sex polygamy is what?

[Warren Stupidity]

27. other than it is vanishingly non-existent, nothing.

But bravo for taking a few days to come up with this absurd counter-argument. Did you fret all day over this?

[Starboard Tack]

28. Why are you being so hostile?

I am happy to see we are on the same page and that neither of us has a problem with same sex polygamy. I might add that I have no issue with polygamy in general, provided there is mutual consent.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. Any hostility you have detected is entirely in your own head.

As noted above there are huge issues with the standard practice of polygyny, especially as to the way a polygynous society affects the status of women and young men. Your inability to comprehend that is not surprising.

[Starboard Tack]

30. I thought we were discussing polygamy

Why would you choose to narrow it down to polygyny? Do you have a problem with women having multiple spouses of whatever gender?
My comprehension level is actually very high, so enough already with the insults and hostility. I am trying to have a discussion to find some common ground. Make an effort.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. You've decided to parse polygamy in unusual ways to make ridiculous points.

So I've been more specific. Most people mean polygyny when they use the word polygamy. It is an incorrect usage, but quite common. You chose to carve out the extremely unusual subset of "same sex group marriage" to make some sort of nonsense point. So back to polygyny: it is a dysfunctional form of marriage as seen by the many examples of polygynous communities. Consequently the state rightly has no interest in licensing such arrangements through marriage contracts. People remain free to live in such arrangements.

Really I have no interest in making common ground with somebody who has described the atheist community here on DU as "vermin".

[Starboard Tack]

32. LOL

You are one funny guy Warren.
You accuse me of parsing polygamy. What a crock. And what a pathetic attempt to regain some credibility. Who the fuck are "most people"?

And who the fuck are these "vermin" you talk about in the so-called atheist community? Are you referring to the anti-theist theophobes who self identify as representatives of the VNN, or are you including all atheists. If so, I don't appreciate the insult.

The only comment I ever made regarding vermin was in regard to leaving crumbs on the counter and had zero reference to atheists or atheism, but you already knew that.

[JDPriestly]

26. K&R.