Kim Davis is not worth the fight

Mike Huckabee calls it “the most important issue in the [2016] presidential election.” Ted Cruz thinks it’s an issue so important that it merits a radical reorganization of the judicial branch of the federal government.

What issue could possibly be such a calamity that it merits the forceful rhetoric and campaign promises from such politicians? Hint: it’s not about crushing college debts, massive federal deficits or even an unfair tax code.

According to Huckabee and Cruz, Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because of “God’s authority,” represents the most important issue of the 2016 presidential election.

There are innumerable issues that have a direct and negative impact on everyday life in the United States, but the fight for Davis’ religious freedom is not one of them.

Nonetheless, after a judge sent Davis to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses, politicians became convinced this is all a result of the government’s ongoing “criminalization of Christianity,” as Huckabee calls it. Despite another judge releasing her just five days later, the government is attacking our religious liberties, they say.

Yet, as much as Huckabee and some social conservatives want to focus on this imagined violation of Davis’ religious liberty, this issue is too far removed from America’s real problems to be either necessary or helpful to spotlight. Davis is merely a distraction from the issues that matter.

The GOP simply cannot win using Davis and “religious liberty” as its primary issue, as it is largely unimportant both for Republican voters and the electorate as a whole — and rightly so.

Whether you agree or disagree with Davis’ course of actions, outside of herself and the couples whose licenses she denied, the controversy will have little effect on anyone’s day-to-day existence.

That hasn’t stopped Huckabee from making Davis’ experience an issue, however.

In a Sept. 6, interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Huckabee compared the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott ruling, which denied citizenship to black Americans, to the Court’s decision this past June to legalize same-sex marriage nation-wide.

“Was that a correct decision? Should the courts have been irrevocably followed on that? Should Lincoln have been put in jail because he ignored it? That’s the fundamental question,” Huckabee said of Dred Scott.

Basically, Huckabee believes that Davis is comparable to a modern day Lincoln — ignoring a Supreme Court decision that he views as immoral.

If this comparison represents the quality of argument this “issue” draws from its most ardent believer, it certainly can’t help American voters’ interest in a problem that, for most, might as well be hypothetical. Huckabee’s misguided crusade against what he theatrically calls “judicial tyranny” is inescapably wrong.

Of course, there are people on both sides of the political dialogue who, in the name of minority rights, claim that a case like Davis’ is important because it might lead to more widespread injustice.  Some socially conservative Christians are certainly worried that they are in danger of imprisonment for their beliefs because of precedents like Davis’ five-day stint in jail.

But let’s not forget that Davis abusing her elected position to enable her personal prejudices is possibly representative of a widespread disregard for LGBTQ citizens’ right to equal protection, as well.

We shouldn’t absolve Davis’ situation of any moral connotations, but it also bears repeating that it’s the specifics of this situation that make it a unique scenario. Ms. Davis wasn’t simply practicing her freedom of religion in isolation from the rest of the world — she was a public servant who obliterated the separation between church and state by abusing public office for religious purposes.

Regardless of how much Huckabee and other social conservatives argue otherwise, this is clearly not how the vast majority of religiously affiliated Americans observe their religious opinions.

A poll conducted by Gallup in early June open-endedly asked participants what they thought was the country’s “most important problem.” Only five percent were most concerned with “moral decline,” the issue that horrifies traditionalist Huckabee.

On the other hand, 86 percent of Gallup poll respondents said economic issues were “extremely/very important” to their decision, a number even higher among Republicans — 89 percent.

Even if Huckabee’s concern with religious liberty held weight, his and other social conservatives’ positions are aimed at very narrow segments of the population, and have predictably narrow appeal.

Therefore, it’s time the Republican Party abandoned its deluded culture warriors and focused on issues a little more connected to reality. That is, if it wants to focus on representing, rather than clinging to old gripes.

Write Henry at hgg7@pitt.edu