... because many 'rights' "married couples" enjoy are defined by laws enacted by 'the government'.

There's a linkage there, so "the solution" could be 'as simple' as enacting or modifying "the law" to say that Everything Associated With "Marriage" is also associated with "civil union" or whatever other term y'all agree on...

And will that happen? Ever? Don't bet large sums on that happening.

Agreed. It amazed me to see so many on this site jumping on the religious freedom or the judicial activist bandwagon and so few discussing the immorality of laws requiring you to ask permission to get married in the first place.

It seems as if she actually upheld the law in Kentucky. Check the state's constitution. Does a federal court over ride state legislation? Since when do judges get the right to create law?

Yes, I'm sure she would say that all those other moral codes are wrong. and how would she know? She has faith, of course. And her faith is the correct faith of course, as opposed to those "other" religions. She can FEEL it. Just like the book says.

I've read those and several more. Perhaps you could point me to something more specific? Rand never justified morality by any measure of survival of the human race. That would be to subject the individual to whatever is best for society, or the human race. Quite the opposite, morality is based on the requirements for the life of the individual. "a person's own life and happiness is the ultimate good".

Maybe you should do some reading. This came from a quick search; http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a...

Thanks Kevin. The case of this woman would not be particularly important by itself -- other than it's always good when a bureaucrat is held accountable; if only they would do that in the viro agencies, immigration, NSA, Hillary, etc. But this case illustrates a broader principle of the imprecise idea of "freedom of conscience" being misused by traditional religious conservatives in a typical manner which they themselves are widely promoting, beginning with prominent conservative spokesmen like Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Huckabee, etc. Their crude fallacies and sometimes demagoguery are being uncritically picked up and echoed, so it's important to answer it in all its aspects. This is, as usual, much deeper than politics alone.

You're preachin' to the choir as the saying goes.

I've said all along I'm a Christian who discovered Ayn Rand four years ago thanks to the AS flicks.
I've also stated my doubt there is a person on this planet I 100% agree with as well as another about Ms. Rand ever expecting anyone to march lock step behind her.
I'm certain you have already read all that.
You've been dogging my trail here in the Gulch for weeks.
I know you want my freedom of thought here to go away.
If the owners do not want my old dino newbie Rand fan perspective on things, they can kick me off.
And I hope that makes you happy.

Ayn Rand most certainly did not base her philosophy on the "race", which is a crude collectivist notion. For someone who claims to be a "devout" Objectivist you don't understand much about it, which is indicated beginning with the self-characterization of "devout".

Religion was not the basis of this country. America was founded explicitly on European Enlightenment principles of reason and individualism that threw off the intellectual and cultural dominance of the Church. China and north Africa did not have that, and neither did medieval Europe, which had also not developed a society of reason and individualism from its Dark Ages.

See Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels and Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.

Even if you don't know the history, you can see that the Christian focus on other worldliness, faith over reason, sacrifice and subservience could not possibly lead to the American ideal of the right to one's own life, liberty, property and happiness on earth and the spectacular success of this country in ways undreamed of for the previous millennia. See Leonard Peikoff's lecture series on The History of Western Philosophy.

Maybe you did not read what I actually wrote since you only cherry picked a couple of words then tried to argue your point from that. Are you saying that she must "serve unbelievers or people her religion has damned, if her religion does not allow it?" I'll even go farther. Must she serve anyone that she doesn't want to willingly serve for what ever reason?

I did not say that this case has "something" to do with Nazism, except for the fact that the excuse of following the law regardless of it being morally right or wrong was not accepted as defense by the judges at Nuremberg. Regardless of the basis for her convictions, she is doing exactly what the Nuremberg judges prescribed.
Interestingly that you see Davis as trumping on others' rights, but because you disagree with the basis of her convictions, you are not only stripping her of rights, you don't even acknowledge that they exist. You see her faith as irrational, but see homosexuality as rational. Is your rationality superior to hers? What is the basis of your rationality that guarantees that homosexuality is a rational behavior? I don't think that you can quote Ayn Rand on that.
You keep on saying that Davis should simply quit. Why? She was elected, presumably based on her views and on her character. She is living up to what she was elected to represent. Many people, and I for one, believe that Obama needs to stop terrorizing America and quit. My wishes are still unanswered...
Remember, Rosa Parks had also defied the law.

I suggest that you read Ayn Rand in detail. Not just her novels, but other works, such as the "Virtue of Selfishness" and her writings For the New Intellectual and you will see that Rand justifies morality by the metric of ultimate, long term survival and advancement of the humans as a race. Where else would morals come from, and be universally justified?
BTW, I do agree with you that the government has no business to be in the survival and thriving of the human species business, and less of all in the marriage business.

Your religious proselytizing is inappropriate and in arrogant, open defiance of the purpose and rules of the forum. Whether or not it is tolerated is up to the owners. Sometimes there is a relative benefit to the expose'.

She does not have a First Amendment right to what she is demanding. No one is forcing her to serve "unbelievers". She is not acting as a private individual, she is in a government position which she chose to take, with requirements to issue marriage licenses to those who legally qualify. She has no right to a government job or to change those public requirements to suit her religious faith.

Her religion is irrelevant to the responsibility to do her job, and her militant appeals to religion as an alleged source of superior privilege are offensively irrelevant. If she doesn't want to do the job she doesn't have to keep it. No one is forcing her to keep it. She is in jail for defying a court order to carry out the duties of a job she refused to leave and still refuses to leave.

She is trying to have her cake and eat it too. See http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts... here on this same page.

"construct of a moral society is based on the ultimate survival and thriving of the human species". Where do you get that from? That has nothing to do with Rand or Objectivism. Only omnipotent beings and would be kings are concerned with the "ultimate survival and thriving of the human species". This is about individual rights and the violation of those rights by an officer of the government. She chose to violate those rights based on her irrational beliefs. That is how I know her moral code is wrong. Her moral code is based on those same irrational beliefs, A moral code that would protect those individual rights would be proper. A marriage is a marriage is a marriage in the eyes of a rights respecting government, be it straight, gay, interracial or otherwise. The government has no business pursuing, regulating, legislating or enforcing the "survival & thriving of the human species."

If she had been working for or owned a private business then she would have been well within her rights but as an officer of the government, and the force implied by that, her actions were immoral.

This has nothing to do with Nazis. I have already answered your question. Stop pretending it's relevant. That Nazis once made excuses based on their own atrocious laws does not mean that enforcing civilized laws is "Nazism". It doesn't follow. It is a crude logical fallacy.

Morality always takes precedence over government. We always decide for ourselves what to do in accordance with relevant principle, including the nature of government and the necessity for it, our goals, and means, taking the consequences for our own choices and actions. That does not mean that Davis, a public official, has a right to make her own law and expect that everyone else accommodate her just because she invokes "religion". She is trying to make herself exempt from the law on principle, on grounds of religion. That is not what the First Amendment means and is not what civil disobedience means. She can either quit the government job she doesn't like or take the consequences for defying a court order to stop violating other peoples' rights. No one is violating her rights.

Her irrational religious morality does not take precedence over reality and the rights of everyone else. She has a right to believe what she wants and live her own life the way she wants to regardless of her irrational beliefs. Her irrational beliefs do not justify imposing them on others because they are defiantly irrational, i.e., "faith".

The "significant difference" with religionists demanding a privileged status for their faith in dogma is not a sign of a "sick society", it is a sign of a sick individual and her activist supporters, being stirred up by militant conservative demagoguery. It is properly addressed by routine law enforcement when her actions infringe on others' civil rights, which they have. That is the nature of law enforcement which resolves the problem for everyone except the irrational who suffer the consequences of their own dogmatic militancy, as it does for every criminal element. It is not a reason to run around hysterically screaming that "religious freedom" is being violated. It is not.

The Constitution with its Amendments is altogether the well spring from which all American laws flow.
Amendment #1 includes freedom of religion.

Oh, yeah, bakers and their cakes.
Thanks for jogging my memory.
That lady better not go start a bakery not ever.

Make me.

Actually, religious thinking was in fact the basis for our society and our rights. Now, in full disclosure, I am not religious and never have been, but I am stating facts as I see them. I do not believe in re-inventing history. The Founding Fathers have very much based their thinking, opinions and, ultimately, the enumeration of our rights, on the morals derived through millennia of Judaeo-Christian thought. It is not an accident that the Bill of Rights was written in Christian America and not in Buddhist China or Moslem Algeria. I do not subscribe to the Judaeo-Christian dogma, but you cannot deny that it was and is the basis of our society.

She has a First Amendment right. She should not be forced to serve unbelievers or people her religion has damned, if her religion does not allow it. She also does not have a right to a job that she is not willing to do. If she wants to have her cake and eat it too, she is wrong.
She should be able to quit and find a new job that does not conflict with her religious beliefs and she is willing to do.

Why are you avoiding my direct and relevant question: Did the Nazis at Nuremberg use the excuse that they were simply "following the law" or not?
I am not saying that Davis is right in her decision to not marry gays; what I am saying is that in some circumstances morality takes precedence over legality. Ideally, the disconnect should not exist at all or be minimal. A significant difference between the two is a sign of a sick society and jailing one or the other does not resolve the problem.

There is no First amendment right for a bureaucrat to impose his religion in defiance of law. Religious faith is not a privileged status to abuse others either in principle or in law.

Rand's construct of a moral society is based on the ultimate survival and thriving of the human species. Please tell me how a homosexual marriage helps in this regard? Since you know which moral code is valid and which is not and, apparently, are basing this on Objectivism, please make that connection for me.