Anyone who’s followed the religious right knows that Franklin Graham is nowhere near the man that his father, Billy Graham, was. In recent years, Graham fils has used the goodwill that Graham père acquired over the years to become a water-carrier for the religious right. Any doubt that Graham fils is dragging his father’s legacy through the mud should have been erased earlier this morning, when he took to Facebook to publicly express support for Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky clerk who has spent the last two months protesting marriage equality by refusing to grant marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight.
Graham fils applauds Davis and other Americans who are “standing up against the evil being forced on us,” and calls for more people to “take a stand for religious freedoms and biblical values in our communities.” What Graham fils either doesn’t or won’t tell you is that Davis hasn’t issued ANY marriage licenses at all for two months. Most of Davis’ critics are focusing on how she is harping about the sanctity of marriage when she herself has been married four times. But that nearly as outrageous as the fact that she has has held innocent couples in her county hostage for the entire summer. Not by a longshot.
Given Graham fils’ full-throated expression of support for Davis, it’s more than fair to ask whether he condones Davis’ decision to effectively make innocent third parties into collateral damage in this charade. Perhaps someone ought to ask him on Facebook–politely, of course. If he does know that Davis is turning away all couples seeking a license, it would be perfectly in character for him. This is a man who publicly questioned the Christian commitment of any Christian who voted for Obama, suggested God might hurl the country over the fiscal cliff as punishment for reelecting Obama, and joined the vulture flock blaming Sandy Hook on the lack of prayer in school.
But even if Graham fils doesn’t know that Davis is turning away all couples seeking a license, he forgets that Davis has other, perfectly legitimate means to protest the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of marriage equality. She would have come out looking far better if she’d resigned. Then she could have said, “I may be giving up the office to which I was just elected, but I cannot violate my faith.”
Davis has maintained that as a devout Apostolic Pentecostal, issuing a license to an LGBT couple would amount to “approving” the marriage–and if she did that, it could potentially jeopardize her own salvation. However, Christian Left blogger and missiologist Benjamin L. Corey, best known as the man behind the Formerly Fundie blog at Patheos, points out that “no one is forcing her to divorce her 4th husband and marry a woman.” He also points out that Davis has “essentially hijacked a portion of the government” to force her religious convictions on her constituents.
As Corey sees it, Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses is no different from a Muslim city official turning down a pig farmer’s request for a building permit or an Amish county official refusing to let any resident of his county register a car. In these scenarios, Corey writes, Graham fils would be “pitching a fit,” and would also be demanding that these officials be fired posthaste.
Davis is due to appear before federal judge David Bunning tomorrow to try and talk her way out of being held in contempt for flouting his order to resume granting marriage licenses–an order that is now set in granite with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court upholding it. Apparently Davis got a heads-up that Graham fils was supporting her, because she filed papers arguing that she shouldn’t have to issue any licenses until her claims are resolved. In all likelihood, Bunning will not only wad those arguments up and throw them at her, but at the very least slap her with a heavy fine. Given that she is holding all couples who want to be married in her county hostage, I would also hope he packs her off to jail.
The Billy Graham ministry operates a very popular contemporary Christian music station, “106.9 the Light,” in Asheville. It operates from one of the highest radio towers east of the Mississippi, giving it coverage from the Tri-Cities of Tennessee and Virginia all the way to my home in Charlotte. However, this latest bilge from Graham fils reminded me why I haven’t listened to that station in a long while. As long as he keeps carrying water for the far right, Franklin Graham can shove it.
