It seems many people confuse constitutional rights with getting what they want.
In our line, we see this most often when we decline to publish something for whatever reason. If it’s a letter, and it almost always is, one of the first complaints the writer will lodge is that we have violated their constitutional right to free speech.
The correct response is that we are not violating anyone’s right to free speech so much as we are exercising the constitutional right of a free press to freely choose the materials we publish.
Rights have been in the news largely surrounding the exploits of Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis. As you may have heard, Mrs. Davis has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, going so far as to violate a court order and go to jail over it.
Her argument essentially boils down to saying doing so violates her religious beliefs.
Davis has her supporters, and they have been successful framing the argument in terms of religious freedom, which is a shame, because not only are they completely in the wrong, all this yammering is obscuring an invaluable learning opportunity.
Despite claims to the contrary, this is not a religious issue and all the hours and hours of media time devoted to peddling that narrative is just so much peddling of product. This is a civics issue; a straight-up legal question.
Kim Davis is in the wrong for the sole reason that, in her role as a public servant, her manner of exercising her freedom of religion imposes that religion on, an act also known as violating the rights of, people who are exercising their right not to follow that religion.
No matter who says anything to the contrary, in private, Kim Davis, like every American, is, has been, and always will be free to exercise whatever religion, hold whatever opinion, and say whatever she wants.
Like it or not, the law applies to everyone equally. That principle protects us all. That is a separate issue from the question of whether the law is just, but frankly that kind of decision is just not up to an individual public servant to make.
