Freedom of speech, people being offended, Kim Davis, Jeremy Corbyn, Bilbo Baggin's genitals, Tim Hunt and sex robots... but not necessarily in that order.
Or if you want an actual blurb : I look at people being offended and free speech. It's perfectly possible to be offended by something not because it's genuinely harmful, but because you're an idiot. This appears to be the case with Jeremy Corbyn not singing the national anthem, and, to a lesser extent, the Tim Hunt fiasco (though in that case people were not in possession of the full facts, they tended to instantly assume the worst without justification). I look at when I think censorship is appropriate, but discuss why this is an extreme measure. It should be a weapon of last resort, not a first response as many twitter mobs seem to be advocating.
PLACEHOLDER
The reason Kim Davis wasn't simply fired is that she can't be; she's an elected official. She has to be impeached to remove her from office. She was sued when she wouldn't issue a marriage license, and lost. IIRC, when she still refused to issue the license in that case, she was in contempt of court, which led directly to her going to jail. The consequences of free speech that you mention.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I didn't know that. That certainly changes things. Of course, it makes the jail sentence much less worrying. I'll edit the post shortly.
ReplyDeleteDo due diligence online about it, just in case I'm having a brain fart. This is what I recall reading about it previously.
ReplyDeleteYep, my bad for saying that people shouldn't jump to conclusions and then posting something without proper research... (which I shall do this afternoon).
ReplyDeleteNope, you were dead right. Post edited.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, that she didn't choose to resign (which would have avoided a jail sentence) ties in quite nicely with the following section. In this case it could be argued that she chose jail rather than resignation, but in any case, she wasn't free to do her job because of her beliefs.
Agreed. While I find her belief in this matter reprehensible, I do have some small sympathy for her plight in that her job didn't initially contradict her belief (though it could be argued that she might have predicted where the political winds were blowing) and this new responsibility was thrust upon her. However, the Right thing to do would have been to resign; it's not as if an elected position is (at least, it's not supposed to be) long-term employment.
ReplyDeleteExactly. We are at the awkward moment of the paradigm shift, where things that were once considered unacceptable are becoming normal but there are still plenty of people left with the old mentality. I do sympathise with the "this wasn't what I signed up for" argument, even if I think her beliefs are wrong-headed.
ReplyDeleteThe comparison to resigning in the case of being forced to teach wrong "facts" doesn't stand up. She herself said that she wouldn't prevent others from issuing single-sex marriage licenses, so her continuing in office wouldn't actually achieve anything.
Rhys Taylor The proper course of action where new responsibilities at work conflict with religion is not to expect or compel resignation from the job. Instead, the employer is expected to make reasonable accommodations. In this case, she was offered such an accommodation, where she was allowed to refuse to sign, if she allowed the licences to be signed by her deputies. She refused the accommodation.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, this is NOT a case where there exists intolerance of intolerance. She was tolerated with a reasonable accommodation.
David Westebbe I agree about making reasonable accommodations. However I think it's debatable whether this is a case of not tolerating intolerance. She was offered toleration, but when she stubbornly maintained her intolerance, she exceeded the limits of the offer and sent to jail. I say debatable because it depends what you think is the most important factor in her imprisonment : her being in contempt of court, or her sticking to her beliefs.
ReplyDeleteJust because a reasonable offer was initially made does not necessarily mean that it doesn't ultimately boil down to being intolerant of intolerance.
Rhys Taylor We disagree. IMO, the accommodation which was offered was adequate to tolerate her beliefs.
ReplyDeleteDavid Westebbe On checking the wikipedia article a bit more carefully (I'll check other sources later), I found something very interesting. It seems that the offer to allow her to avoid issuing marriage licenses actually came from her while she was in jail. So she was imprisoned for refusing licenses before an attempt was made to accommodate her beliefs. However, I think I need to do a lot more digging on this one, because it's a much more complicated case than I initially realised.
ReplyDeleteSo, after more digging, I can't confirm if she was given the option of having her deputies issue the licenses before she was jailed or not. Nor can I confirm if it was Kim or her attorneys who proposed this idea. Wikipedia says this was the case, however, the article cited does not appear to actually support this - it's only wiki's own text which says Kim herself came up with the idea :
ReplyDeletehttp://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/06/politics/kim-davis-kentucky-clerk-same-sex-marriage/
The closest it comes is : " ruling she was in contempt of court for refusing to issue the licenses and not allowing her deputies to distribute them for her."
Which does suggest that the option was presented and she rejected it. However, I can't find any further details on this point. So I concede that it is possible that this is not a case of intolerance of intolerance, but I can't be 100% certain. Maybe her deputies tried and she refused to sign. Maybe they never tried. Maybe her superiors told her to but she refused. Maybe the idea was just never raised at all.
What is clear is that on her release from jail she was ordered not to interfere with her deputies issuing the licenses, and her name would be removed from them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/08/kim-davis-released-from-jail-plus-more-on-her-requested-accommodation/
It's pretty hard to search for what happened initially though, because now there news feeds are dominated by questions as to whether she's altering licenses to totally remove all names except that of one clerk, which would be in violation of the court order : http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawyer-deputy-clerk-kim-davis-may-be-violating-judges-order-n430116
I would accept exempting Kim from the sole duty of issuing marriage licenses as a reasonable compromise. That way she's not compelled to act against her beliefs and gay people can still get married. However it appears that she's trying to go much further than that and prevent anyone else from acting against her beliefs as well, which is far worse.