The real issue here is that woman stopped going to a court-mandated session.
The constitutionality of the religious sessions themselves is a fight for another day, and likely a winnable one.
While lawyers cost money, any one of them would have told her to follow the court’s orders,and continue to lodge protest.
Her answer to the “What is god to me?” essay should have simply been: My faith or lack of faith is a private matter and I cannot be compelled to discuss it otherwise, as indicated by the first amendment. I am willing to discuss any and all methodologies to resolve co-parenting issues that do not involve faith, higher powers, or violations of my civil rights.
Yes, that may not carry weight with the counselor, but it would have positioned the defendant with a little better legal standing.
Imagine you are fighting for custody with your ex-partner, who has a different religion to you. The counsellor appointed by the judge clearly shows that she feels that a major problem is your lack of belief in your ex’s faith, and explicitly tries to change your beliefs within her position as someone who is counselling you and assessing your suitability as a parent. Do you lie and risk being called out for your lack of honesty (thereby undermining your claim to be a good parent), go to the sessions but refuse to go along with the religious advice (thereby showing yourself to be uncooperative and undermining your claim to be a good parent) or do you find evidence for the lack of professionalism and appeal the appointment? If your claim is rejected and you are only given the choice to continue or lose your kids, should you be blamed for rejecting the obviously biased situation you’ve been placed in? Are you in any way responsible for the way things worked out, when the odds were stacked against you from the start?
I just find it appalling all the people saying “she should roll with the punches, just go along with it, suck it up.”
I am extremely doubtful that they’d be so dismissive if the situation was a muslim woman losing custody of her children for refusing to attend christian proselytization sessions, or an orthodox jew being court ordered to attend narconon. They’d be outraged. But here in the US nobody seems to care if atheists and secular people’s rights are violated by being forced to be proselytized to by the courts. It’s obscene and a blind spot and it pisses me right off that atheists aren’t considered to have the same level of rights as any religious person.
Dodging income tax…? What would Jesus have to say about that? Well according to Matthew (22:21), Mark (12:17) AND Luke (20:25), he said, ““Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (though in Aramaic of course).
The religious aspect is horrible, but it’s not the only problem. The counselor required her to actively participate in a criminal act (booking the library session in her name, paying the counselor literally under the table) every time they met in the library for a session.
City policy forbids the sale of products or services on library property.
Salzman says Pepper is aware of that– claiming she has her clients book the rooms in their names and pay her in cash.
“She had actually explained to me that you need to be discrete about it because I’m not allowed to exchange money in the public library. So I had to kind of hide the money and then literally pass the money under the table,” Salzman said.
Your comment deserved to get a lot of jeers. Kim Davis not only refused to do her damn job–she obstructed others from doing their jobs, a fact you seem more than willing to overlook in your defense of her. Davis provided no recourse for couples whose attempts to obtain legal marriage licenses were obstructed by her.
Saltzman attended more than one counseling session with someone she realized was neither legally nor professionally qualified to offer services and made a good faith effort to find a legitimate counselor. She lost custody of her children because she was ignored.
Do you really still think the two cases are comparable? It’s hard to see how you could. You’ll have to go elsewhere to defend Davis.
It’s right there in the body of the article, “City policy forbids the sale of products or services on library property.” That’s why the counselor has the mother sneak her the money under the table.
That said, perhaps I am overreacting. There may be more going on here than the article reveals.
When it’s JW’s or Mormons at your door, and you don’t have time to troll them, this is a fine approach. Works like a charm.
It’s a bit more complicated in this case. I wager if she tried, the “councilor,” for lack of a better word, would’ve doubled down on the proselytizing. The councilor’s behavior as described in the article fits the MO of a born-again. Rabid proselytizers, that lot.
Even better, something totally outside the Judeo-Christian-Muslim family, like Hinduism, or maybe . . . Eckankar.
If the counselor asks you to pray with her, and you start chanting in a foreign language, or ululating at the top of your lungs-- “but that’s how we pray in my religion!” – it would certainly put her off her game.
I once had a guy knock on my door asking if I wanted to go to church with him that Sunday (he wasn’t JW or Mormon, I think his parish priest just asked the parishioners to try and increase the flock),
I replied: “Sure, but I’m actually a Satanist, I’ll go to church with you tomorrow if you come to a Black Mass with me tonight up in the woods near Salem, you don’t even have to get naked your first time!”
He got visibly embarrassed, stuttered something and left.
Well, that’s just because athiests are basically amoral nihilists and don’t really care about anything except being contrarian, so it shouldn’t matter to them… /s
I’m less defending Davis and more pointing out the inconsistency in people’s beliefs. In the philosophical question of individual conscience vs the state’s law, which is, of course, a nuanced and rocky terrain, I’m probably going to side with the individual unless there’s a good amount of evidence otherwise. In Davis’ case, everyone seems to forget that the Constitution she swore to uphold is different than the Constitution she is now defying. She didn’t flip flop, the country did, and now she finds herself in a position of either compliance to the cost of her conscience, or defiance to the cost of her reputation, social standing, etc.
Look, I don’t think she’s a hero by any stretch of the imagination. She’s quite obviously either dumb, or full of issues, or whatever. But that’s not the point. The point is, to the best of her abilities, she did what she thought was right- and so did this non-religious woman with the court mandate. Yes, the circumstances are different in the specifics and sure, I totally side with the non-religious woman’s reasoning. But in the whole “do your damn job” argument, which is the dumbass refrain everyone keeps chanting, I support Davis in not doing her damn job when she thought her damn job was wrong. Yes, find her a new job, yes, her belief that gays disrespect marriage but getting divorced a bunch of times doesn’t is ridiculous. But no, don’t do your damn job when you think your damn job goes contrary to how you think a person should live. That’s the similarity between both cases, and the point of my post.
What leads you to believe that’s not the case? Keep in mind that the court did not correct the issue when made aware of it, before the mother actively disobeyed the order.
I would be EXACTLY as dismissive. The greater good here is for the kids to not lose their mom. Yes, fight it. Get a lawyer. Do whatever you possibly can to get this “counsellor” in as much trouble as you can, and the judge with her for ordering you to go see her. But it is in your children’s best interest that you remain in their lives.
But the point that you seem to keep missing (at least, that you failed to respond to) is that Kim Davis was ACTIVELY DENYING OTHER PEOPLE THEIR RIGHTS when she was acting upon her conscience, and the woman in this case was not denying anybody anything. When you’re trying to claim moral or ethical equivalence between the two cases, you can’t ignore the fact that one case is actively harming others, while the other is not.
Your comparisons are wrong.
You’re liking Davis to Salzman
whereas you should be liking Davis to the Judge
and Salzman to the gays who wish to get married.
So no more derailment with incorrect comparisons.
