Homophobic Pope Distances Self From Homophobic Clerk
The Associated press reports that
The Vatican on Friday distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who went to jail for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, saying she was one of dozens of people the pope greeted in the U.S. and that their meeting “should not be considered a form of support of her position.”
The article goes on to quote a spokesman (I almost wrote spokesperson
, but then remembered that this is the Vatican we’re talking about) that the pope meets with lots of people, and doesn’t necessarily agree with — or even know anything about — all of them.
So basically, Kim Davis is like a stereotypical teenage girl who’s over the moon because One Direction waved to her from on stage at a concert, and she imagines herself BFF with the band. Meanwhile, Harry Styles is all, “Who?”.
I do note that Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman (remember? I was talking about the pope a moment ago) is quoted as saying,
“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.
The emphasized weasel words allow the Vatican to play it both ways: they’ll be able to either agree or disagree with her in the future, depending what’s more convenient at the time, because hey, Davis’s position is complex.
And by the way, I’d like to welcome our conservative friends: for years, pope Francis has been quoted by the media as saying some reasonably liberal and forward-thinking things (“Who am I to judge [gay people]?”), and then his people come back a day or two later and explain that ha ha no, he didn’t actually mean it (“no, gays can’t marry or form relationships or have sex, but if they want to come to church and confess that they’re sinners, we welcome them.”). This time, he just did it with a conservative cause instead of a liberal one.
There was a hot mic take at the end of the presser where a Vatican official was heard to say, “Davis is a kind of crazy not even we want to be associated with.” #notreally #butmaybe
Someone (maybe Frank himself?) said it was about recognizing conscientious objection. Um, no. If a priest was ordered to do a same-sex wedding, in church, with full rites, and refused, then yes, that would be CO (because religious freedom is a thing, even when in service of reactionary positions). But a civil servant refusing to sign off on a government document when all the legal ‘t’s have been crossed and ‘i’s have been dotted? Not so much.
Yeah, there’s a huge difference, as I see it, between someone, say, being drafted to fight in the Vietnam war, and Kim Davis’s case: the former says, “there’s a job you’re asking me to do that my conscience won’t allow”. The latter is saying, “I asked to this job, but now my conscience won’t allow me to.”
If her religious rules won’t allow her to serve as clerk, she can resign, or not run for reelection. She’s not being coerced, so she doesn’t get to play the conscientious objector card.
And for the record, churches should not be compelled by law to host weddings they object to.