I'm not sure it's very important to "be able to criticize her bigotry," as mostly a charge of bigotry is used to raise an emotional wall with her on the other side of it. You need not examine her position more closely, because if she's a bigot she's a bad, ugly -- well, not in the physical sense -- person who's obviously nothing like us good people over here. It would be worth seeing if she can be criticized on rational grounds.
And, as it turns out, it's not even hard to do this. She's at fault for being a public official who does not obey the law. For the most part, and with some exceptions, conservatives have no problem admitting to this. Even if you admire her guts for standing up to the Supreme Court, conservatives in general know what the responsible line to take is. So if you want to criticize her on those grounds, you'd find that mostly your opponents on the larger issue (bigots, no doubt) agree with you.
So why not defend the idea that the people whose job it is to enforce the law must obey the law, or be disqualified from holding public office?
When Kim Davis, the Rowan County, KY, clerk was hauled off to jail for refusing to give marriage licenses, a White House spokesman said no official is above the law. Hillary Clinton cheered on Twitter.Oh, right. That's why.
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In a way, that line of reasoning reminds me of both parties' refusal to get rid of the filibuster even though (when it is used against them), they say it's just uber-unfair.
But someday, the ability to be unfair yourself might be *useful* :p
Well, it's figuratively called 'the nuclear option' for a reason. Of course, it might be worth doing to avoid the literal nuclear option we seem to be intent on granting Iran.
The only reason to sympathize with her is that Hillary Clinton is cheering on the process of jailing her? I suspect there are more issues swirling around than that.
What I meant was more that Hillary Clinton is the #1 reason they have to criticize her as a "bigot," and not as a government employee who habitually breaks the law.
Oh, I get you now. Well, I imagine even without Hillary Clinton there are large hordes primed to do the two-minute hate as soon as they hear she has religious convictions against gay marriage, which is a hate crime. For several days now, several people have been earnestly explaining to me to the clerk can't be a Christian or she'd be obeying the Golden Rule. One guy I thought you'd especially appreciate has been telling me that if everyone obeyed his conscience, we'd have chaos. He was also deeply disturbed to hear that there were aspects of biblical teaching that not 100% of Christians agreed on.
If this were a more powerful elected official, those alleging harm would have to file a new lawsuit to enforce their rights, pay the legal fees, and wait for a decision. I've seen a LOT of officials at the State and Federal level act contrary to our laws, and none of them have been summarily held in contempt and sent to jail.
Meanwhile, all the love birds have to do is drive over to the next county to get a license. They have a remedy.
Valerie
This is one of those issues where you can tell who does their homework on either side. Usually within two or three lines people will reveal if they know their stuff (not typical) or are blowing partisan smoke (more typical).
Eugene Volokh has an excellent primer on both the factual and legal issues in play on his WaPo blog.
Cuckservatives want her to resign. Those who are in the fight, have better strategic vision.
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