This post has been updated for new information.
So we will be diving back into Halstead here soon, as I found another article of his I want to go over. But real quickly there were two things I wanted to talk about.
First off is the county clerk lady in Kentucky. Now, at this point all my information is second hand, so I can’t promise everything here is going to be completely correct. But I’ve heard enough to talk about a few things. Honestly, the situation is being mishandled, but then I’m not sure there is a good way to handle it.
So far she has refused to give out licenses to gay couples, but she is also not handing them out to straight couples either, which means technically she is not discriminating against gay people. I know this might be hard to grasp, because she’s stopped giving out licenses because of gay people, but she is not discriminating against gay people because she’s being equitable in her denial of service.
She claims she’s doing this by the authority of God. Even as a deeply religious person I have to say that such a justification is Bullshit on legal grounds. Legally, no God has authority over the practice of laws in the USA. However, there is a long history in both the USA and of other nations where the “authority of god” certainly works on Moral Grounds. The anti-slavery protesters and abolitionists who aided escaped slaves acted against the Law by the “authority of God” and largely got away with it in the North. People who helped Jews escape the Holocaust also used the same reasoning. Time has judged those examples as valid. So here in we have a stalemate, of sorts, even if people don’t’ like it.
However, that being said, this county clerk is not entirely in the wrong for refusing to allow gay people to receive marriage licenses. Now I can see the pitchforks and torches, but before you kill me, I shall explain. By the Constitution of the United states and its founding Laws, the Supreme Court does not have the ability or right to make Law. They can only decide on punishments if the law is broken, or if a law is constitutional. When the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nation wide, they broke the law and overstepped the bounds of their Office. This is admitted and chastised in all four of the dissenting opinions put out by the Supreme Court.
By Law, Gay marriage should not have been legalized by the Supreme Court. That would be the job of the State and National Congresses. So while the “authority of God” has no legal standing…the dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court on the other hand…can.
So when people rage about why the higher courts haven’t gone in and arrested this woman and charged her for breaking the Law, it’s not because they can’t. It’s because I suspect someone, somewhere up the line realizes that if it goes to trial, any halfway decent lawyer is going to take the dissent and use the hell out of it. “She is refusing to enforce an illegal law.”
And it would be a battle that would go all the way up to the supreme court. Because this lady would have the funding. No matter how much the rest of agree that gay people should be allowed to marry, there are enough out there with the funds to fight this. And that’s why this lady is getting every tactic short of arrest to force her to stop her boycott and give in. I doubt she will though, she certainly seems to have enough faith to fight this so far, and it is likely that even she knows she has a chance of winning. Because if nothing else, Christians are wonderful about making and using martyrs, and make no mistake, this lady will be used that way if she gets arrested and goes to trial. Even Christians who support Gay marriage will come to rally behind her, if only out of preservation for themselves as religious people.
IMPORTANT UPDATE
So apparently they have arrested her. I guess it was going on too long for the GLBT crowd to let it last (it was showing their impotency that she hadn’t caved). So they went and put cuffs on her. Now we get a trial. And we see if her lawyers have figured out what I did.
End of update
The second thing I wanted to touch on briefly is the other thing that seems to be blowing up my news feed, the story about a transgender girl in Missouri.
Now, any of my fellow Pagans who have been around for the last five years or so will read that article and probably be shaking their heads. They know what is coming.
Yep, trans-women’s rights vs cis-women’s rights. Does your right to be a woman surpass my right not to have a penis in my face. What is a woman, who can be a woman, who can be in women’s spaces, is a woman a woman even if she has a penis? How can people hate trans-sexuals so much, so much transphobia, can’t they understand that trans sexuals are the gender they feel rather than the gender they present? The likening it to racism. But the mysoginy of men entering women’s spaces and trying to appropriate women’s suffering by pretending to be women rather than admit they’re the shitty misogynists all men are! AND CAN’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE POOR GIRLS!!!!!!!
which girls though?
To quote form the transgirl herself:
She also assured parents that she is not going to “hurt” their daughters. “I’m not going to expose myself. I’m not a pervert,” she says. “I’m a transgender woman. I’m a girl. I’m just in there to change, do my business, and if they have any questions about being transgender, they are more than welcome to talk to me, and I’ll be happy to explain it.”
Of course, if my time with feminists has taught me anything it’s that what you “intend” to happen is unimportant. It’s how the victim feels. So while this young transperson may not intend to hurt anyone’s daughters…well…penis.
Which is how many people will see her statement (my comments in parenthesis).
She also assured parents that she is not going to “hurt” their daughters. “I’m not going to expose myself (I’m just getting naked in the girls locker room, with my penis). I’m not a pervert (showing my penis),” she says. “I’m a transgender woman (with a penis). I’m a girl (penis!). I’m just in there to change (with muh penis), do my business (with my penis), and if they have any questions about being transgender (and having a penis), they are more than welcome to talk to me, and I’ll be happy to explain it (possibly with my penis).”
Now apparently Perry (this girl) was a gay boy, but decided/realized he was a she when she was 13. So perhaps there will be no awkward boners in the changing room with all those naked girls. Though the troll in me would find it hilarious if there were. I’m sure there would be no awkward questions at all. Also, Perry is said to be wearing a wig (according to the other girls there) and is a pre-op. Not sure if that’s relevant, but throwing it out there.
Anyways, I’m not really of one position or the other on if Perry should be let into the girl’s locker room. But as someone who survived the Dianic Wars, well….
Son of Hel 
The Dianic Wars were hell, weren’t they? On the note about the clerk. The judge has stated that there’s a good chance that the license is invalid. So, in other words, the license isn’t any good. Personally if I heard that someone wasn’t handing out licenses then I would go somewhere else. I wouldn’t want my face on the news. No thank you!
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Yeah, the thing about the licenses being valid is something I’m going to have to look into, because that will be interesting. Another thing I heard later was that the clerk was willing to issue the licenses…as long as she didn’t have to put her name on them, but she was refused that request.
I have to say, this has been dividing my twitter and other feeds. On one said you have people shouting “public officials have to obey the law regardless of belief,” and on the other you have “the right to follow one’s moral creed.” I will admit both side have their point, but given the other thing apparently taking twitter by storm is a rather prominent person got outed as a pedophile and all the sjw’s are rallying behind them, which just lends credence to my “pedos are next” prediction. So I do have to wonder how all the “it’s the law” people are going to react when it is pedo marriage licenses.
And yeah, I would go somewhere else too if I was denied a license. It’s really flexible where you can get them. But some people love to start fights, be martyrs, and harass and bully people who do not agree with them.
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Oh the hypocrisy of the clerk. Gotta love those people that want to protect the “sanctity” of marriage when they themselves have gotten multiple divorces (which from my understanding is looked down upon by Christians too).
But, from my understanding she was stopping any of the clerks under her from giving the license out too. As far as why they didn’t just go somewhere else, from an interview the guy refuses to because by doing so he is saying that what she is doing is ok. Not to mention having to go out of his because of her. I have a feeling on this one though, we will have to agree to disagree.
Now as far as that young girl. I’m incredibly disappointed and rather disgusted. The fact that 200 people went to protest this girl using the girl’s restroom, including adults when she is so young really pisses me off. I’m certain there are much worse things a girl can see than a penis. But in a case like this, I can almost guarantee in the process of changing she has a way that it would not show. She is probably more worried about it being shown than anyone else. It simply serves as a reminder that she was born in the wrong body.
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Everyone keeps saying hypocrisy. I do not think it means what you think it means.
This whole “She’s been divorced and remarried x times” thing everyone keeps harping on as if it’s some failure to uphold her beliefs, but the fact is that the bible is perfectly okay with divorce and remarriage. There was an entire section on different divorces and remarriages. Now it is true that Christians have as a rule been more up tight about it, but that started with the Catholics and weakens from there. So there’s no hypocrisy. Their God said “you can get divorced and remarry” but also said “no gays.”
Is that God right? I don’t agree with him, which is why I worship other Gods, but technically she is still within the rules set by her God and is acting in “good” faith.
As the head clerk, she does have that authority legally. Again, if she’s right or wrong is subjective and I’m not going to say one way or the other, because in this case the whole Law itself is…questionable in its origin, even if it is honorable in its intent.
As for the trans girl, I don’t know if you remember the Dianic Wars but it’s just one giant mess. Does this girl’s right to be treated as her self outweigh the right of those other girls to not have to see said trans girl’s penis? This is really the problem with victim politics, who is the real victim, girl in the wrong body, or the girls who have to see that body when it makes them feel violated and unsafe? But I suspect it’s going to play out that way, if on a smaller scale.
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