The lawyer for Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has stated that she met with Pope Francis during the pontiff’s visit to Washington D.C. last week and received encouragement from him in the meeting. It is a surprising disclosure, if true, but Attorney Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel insists that the Pope spoke to Davis and her husband in English and said “Thank you for your courage” and told her to “stay strong.”
The Vatican is mum on the alleged meeting or who was present on September 24 at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. That was the same day that he had spoken to Congress.
That adds an interesting political wrinkle for Democrats who generally love (as do I) this Pope for his views on climate change, poverty, and other issues. The Pope however also spoke against abortion and does not support same-sex marriage. If he also supports Davis, it can create some difficult issues with the party line on the Clerk. After all, as we discussed today, you have one Democrat who reveres the Pope so much that he is actually dispensing the Pope’s drinking water to family from the glass used during his speech before Congress.
Of course, there is no reason why either Republicans and Democrats cannot still oppose the position of Davis even if (and that is still an “if”) the Pope supports her position. After all, many support the right to choose even when they are personally against abortion and remain practicing Catholics. Yet, it is intriguing that this is one of the people that the Pope would choose to meet if the account is correct.
I am surprised if the Vatican agreed to this meeting. Even the people on rope lines are often screened for the Pope though he is known to plunge into crowds. If this was a truly arranged “meeting,” it is pretty significant that Davis would be selected for such a meeting and encouragement. Politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have been criticized for their support of Davis, who asserts the right to impose her religious views of the legitimacy of a marriage before performing her purely ministerial functions. Reporters have been trying to get the Vatican to confirm whether the Pope has added his voice of support.
Of course, the Vatican could spin the meeting as support for someone following her faith rather than endorsing her legal position. Nevertheless, the alleged meeting may be the most surprising in this even-filled Papal visit.
If you have ever recited the full pledge of allegiance to the US with a hand on your heart you have been a supporter of Ms. Davis.
Dieter –
Dieter Heymann: I’m trying to find something to pacify my absolute disgust over the homicidal US attack on a Doctors Without Borders facility in Afghanistan. The Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t help. Whenever I say it, I feel like I’m part of the Hitler Youth.
What else do you have in your bag of tricks? Heal me!
stevegroen – You can thank President Obama for bombing the doctors. That lays right on his doorstep.
KCFleming also misrepresents the role of the Supreme Court in this case. The constitution gives “the people” the fundamental right to petition government for the redress of grievances. It does not exclude bringing the petition to courts. There must be some end to a litigation. That is why the Supreme Court is Supreme. It is always the end of the road.
Dieter – it is the end of one road. However, in theory there are three parts to our government.
The SC is not the be all and end all of it all. They can be over-ridden by the other two branches.
Dieter Heymann wrote: “The constitution gives “the people” the fundamental right to petition government for the redress of grievances. It does not exclude bringing the petition to courts. There must be some end to a litigation.”
The Supreme Court is the end of the road for the litigants in Obergefell. Their decision in regards to the particulars of the case stand for the litigants, even if it is wrong. But when the Court presumes to order States to change their definition of marriage, they exceed their constitutional authority. That part is not to be obeyed by anyone because it is lawless. The Justices of the majority decision are unjust judges, and the court is lawless in making that declaration.
david writes, “when the Court presumes to order States to change their definition of marriage, they exceed their constitutional authority.”
The Court has never “presumed to order States to change their definition of marriage.” You may have inferred that’s what the Court was doing in Obergefell, but the Court actually opined on the constitutionality of a state’s authority to act. That’s it, and the Court concluded that the state’s purported power didn’t pass constitutional muster. A state can enact any writing it wants, but that doesn’t mean it’s enforceable, and that’s the real, if the only, beauty of federalism – uniformity of this union’s fundamental laws.
By the way, although I disagree with a significant portion of your arguments on this board, it has not gone unnoticed that yours are well-contemplated and always provocative. Thanks for them.
When Ms. Davis was asked on whose authority she refused to issue a marriage license to two qualified males she in essence replied “my God”. That seals the case. She objects because she demands that we become a theocracy.
And KCFleming is 100% wrong on what the US Supreme Court ruling did in this case. It established a common law for the entire nation. Common laws too must be obeyed by all US citizens.
Dieter Heymann wrote: “When Ms. Davis was asked on whose authority she refused to issue a marriage license to two qualified males she in essence replied “my God”. That seals the case. She objects because she demands that we become a theocracy.”
Acknowledging God does not make our country a theocracy anymore than the Declaration of Independence makes us a theocracy by appealing to the authority of God.
Dieter Heymann wrote: “And KCFleming is 100% wrong on what the US Supreme Court ruling did in this case. It established a common law for the entire nation. Common laws too must be obeyed by all US citizens.”
A single case does not necessarily establish common law. Dred Scott and Plessy are two cases that do not establish common law for us. Common law requires agreement with the decisions in court cases. Obergefell did not establish common law because the decision is irrational, based in emotion rather than logic. Obergefell has diminished authority and respect for the high court, or to borrow a word from Justice Scalia, it exposed the court’s impotence.
david and deiter – Arizona has gotten rid of the common law in the state. So, if this latest case is common law, Arizona does not have to follow it.
Paul C. Schulte wrote: “Arizona has gotten rid of the common law in the state. So, if this latest case is common law, Arizona does not have to follow it.”
What? ??? Please explain.
Are you sure you are not confusing “common law marriage” with “common law”?
david – Arizona has never recognized common law marriages. My comment was to Dieter who said the SC had made it common law. Arizona has a specific part of its Constitution which says it does not recognize “common law.”
Paul C. Schulte, I can’t find what you are talking about. I found Article 17 Section 1 says, “The common law doctrine of riparian water rights shall not obtain or be of any force or effect in the state.” and Article 18 Section 4 says, “The common law doctrine of fellow servant, so far as it affects the liability of a master for injuries to his servant resulting from the acts or omissions of any other servant or servants of the common master is forever abrogated.” These are very specific common law issues.
I also found the following website which says the following about common law in Arizona:
“The state of Arizona uses common law courts which focuses on prior judicial decisions, unless an applicable statute is directly on point. One feature of the common law is to promote judicial consistency by courts relying on past decisions when making future decisions.”
http://azcommonlaw.com/about/
“Max-1
1, October 2, 2015 at 2:43 pm
How did it work for you? Amazing… you win the JT broken thread fixer upper award.”
Max-1,
I have no idea what was going on, but I do know that WordPress behaves in bizarre ways, at times. Glad that it went through. Happy to help.
Kimmy D’s lawyer should just retire, like Kimmy D should. Matt Staver’s lies are unhinged.
He makes a mockery of the Justice system by his lies.
The other lie untold here on this blog;
No, 100,000 People Did Not Gather In Peru To Support Kim Davis. Here’s Proof.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/28/3706199/kim-davis-prayer-rally-peru/
http://cdn.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/28084630/Kim-Davis-Rally-VVS-Screenshot-638×358.jpg
However, Liberty Council has since walked this lie back.
Kim’s Papal encounter… as evidenced through photographs. Literally.
http://www.joemygod.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/kimphoto.jpg
How did it work for you? Amazing… you win the JT broken thread fixer upper award.
Credit to Max-1 for the Reuters posting/link, above.
Excerpt from Reuter’s article, linked above and brought into this thread by, and with thanks to, Max-1:
Pope Francis’ meeting last week with an American woman at the center of a row over gay marriage was not something he had sought and should not be seen as an endorsement of her views, the Vatican said on Friday.
One Vatican official said there was “a sense of regret” that the pope had ever seen Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail in September for refusing to honor a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and issue same-sex marriage licenses.
The encounter in Washington was originally kept secret and has sparked widespread debate since it became public this week, proving something of a misstep for the pontiff.
Looking to smother the fierce controversy, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Davis was one of “several dozen” people who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador to see Francis during his visit to the U.S. capital.
“The Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” Lombardi said in a statement.
“The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature (Vatican embassy) was with one of his former students and his family,” the statement said.
The meeting with Davis disappointed many liberal Catholics but delighted conservatives, who saw it as a sign that the pope was clearly condemning a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage.
Davis said on Wednesday that the pope had thanked her for her courage and told her to “stay strong”, adding that knowing that he agreed with what she was doing “kind of validates everything”.
While Lombardi declined to take questions on the incident, his assistant, Canadian priest Father Tom Rosica, laid the blame on the Vatican embassy in Washington, saying it had underestimated the impact of Davis’s presence at the reception.
EMBASSY UNDERESTIMATED SIGNIFICANCE
“I’m not sure that they (the embassy) realized how significant it would be,” he told reporters.
Rosica said he did not believe the pope was even indirectly involved in inviting Davis, adding that the greeting was very brief and that she and her husband were among the many guests at the Washington embassy before the pope left for New York.
Rosica said he did not know if there had been a private meeting. Davis’ lawyer, Mat Staver, said the couple were not in a line, that the meeting was private and seen only by Vatican personnel and security.
“Had Kim Davis been in a line of people or been seen by anyone outside of Vatican personnel, we would not have been able to keep her visit secret,” he said in a statement.
Rosica said the pope was most likely not fully aware of how controversial a figure Davis had become.
“I would simply say her case is a very complex case. It has all kinds of intricacies. Was there an opportunity to brief the pope on this beforehand? I don’t think so. Was an in depth process done? No, probably not,” Rosica said.
Asked if the pope had been set up intentionally by someone in the embassy, Rosica said: “No, reading all of the information, listening to all of the facts, these things happen.”
Rosica said he also doubted that the Davis and her husband spent 15 minutes with the pope, as her lawyer had reported, saying “there simply was not enough time”.
Davis has said her beliefs as an Apostolic Christian prevent her from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Her church belongs to a Protestant movement known as Apostolic Pentecostalism.
Rosica said he hoped the Davis incident and its aftermath would not distract from the significance of the U.S. trip.
“The visit was extraordinary … so to allow this to kind of overshadow it would be very unfortunate. This is not the centerpiece of the papal visit. This is one small part of it, but it is a loaded centerpiece.”
(Reporting by Philip Pullella with additional reporting by Steve Bittenbender in Louisville, Kentucky, Editing by Crispian Balmer, Ralph Boulton, Richard Balmforth)
Let’s see if this works Max-1:
US | Fri Oct 2, 2015 1:40pm EDT
‘Sense of regret’ in Vatican over pope meeting with gay marriage opponent
VATICAN CITY | By Philip Pullella
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/02/us-usa-pope-kentuckyclerk-idUSKCN0RW0UN20151002
the killer quote:
Oops…
Yet the link will not go through.
This is good tho…
as said link destroys the narrative that Kimmy D meet privately with the Pope and he supports her.
The headline:
UPDATE 3-“Sense of regret” in Vatican over pope meeting with gay marriage opponent
It won’t let a certain link from REUTERS go through…
Jon,
There is an issue with your site…
Annie,
Kimmy D appears to have been lying when she says it was a “private” meeting…
… Unless being in a reception line counts as “private”.
When in a receiving line meeting the Pope…
… Closing your eyes and clicking your heals each time you say I am not in Kentucky any more doesn’t make the fairy tale any more real, Kimmy.
Vatican: Pope’s Encounter With Kim Davis ‘Should Not Be Considered A Form Of Support’
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pope-francis-kim-davis-vatican-statement-not-support
Thanks for posting this Max, he seems to be very loving towards them.
The private meeting the FRC doesn’t want you to see…
… When the Pope meet a gay couple and their friends.
(Because the FRC lies)