Now that Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has been let out of jail and Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz are using her to score political points, here is something you might want to know.
This entire debacle is about money.
Not money for her. No, it’s about money for Liberty Counsel, the organization that is representing (or misrepresenting) her.
This so-called non-political organization is an arm of Liberty University. Its founder and CEO, Matthew Staver, is dean of Liberty’s online law school program.
Kim Davis is being used by Staver to raise money for Liberty Counsel. It’s what he does.
I know this because through a friend of a friend I received the Liberty Counsel email alerts from Staver for several years. They were always about Liberty Counsel waging a righteous battle on behalf of people like Davis whose religious freedom liberals and socialists were trying to take away.
Staver not only misrepresented the laws he opposed, he would insert himself in cases in which he had no direct involvement by filing a friend of the court brief (amicus curiae), an unsolicited document stating facts he believed were pertinent to the case. He would then solicit money from his financial supporters as if everything hinged on the legal work Liberty Counsel was doing.
All the better when he found someone like Davis he could actually represent in a case he knew he had no chance of winning. The higher the climb the more money he could solicit. Nothing raises money among fundamentalists faster than the threat of a victory by the enemies of God.
That is even more true when persecuting Christians for their beliefs is thrown into the mix.
Never mind that Christians insisting they are being persecuted in America is as absurd as it gets. When you believe America should be a theocracy, you automatically make this claim whenever the courts refuse to allow what you believe to take precedent over the Constitution.
But one of the most disgusting things Staver has done is to compare Davis’s actions with those of Martin Luther King. Dr. King went to jail to force the nation to live up to the Constitution. Davis went to jail for the opposite reason. She wants to deny constitutional rights to gay and lesbian citizens.
It’s enough to make you sick.
So don’t cry for Argentina or Kim Davis. Cry for the legal travesty her case represents because of Matthew Staver.
Eventually this mess will get settled, the right of the Supreme Court to rule on what is and is not constitutional will stand, and the country will forget about Kim Davis and her puppeteer, Matthew Staver.
What will remain is the image of bigotry and arrogance the nation has witnessed, all in the name of Jesus…yet another blow to the mid-section of genuine Christianity in America.
Srmartinogr45@gmail.com
Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Smartphone
Very helpful to know this. Thank you.
Jan,
Living in Lynchburg, VA, where unfortunately Liberty University is located, I have seen firsthand the devious and disgusting machinations of Mat Staver. Like you, I received his almost daily emails for a year or more, until I could no longer stand to read his distortions (at times lies) designed to raise money for his Liberty Counsel.
His wife once sent a letter asking folks to send money because Mat was tired from working so hard for God and critical causes that he needed to see more support to cheer him up!
Your 7th and 8th paragraphs excellently sum-up Staver’s techniques and the “success” he has in conning the vulnerable and fearful fundamentalists who send him money. What he does is a disgrace that true Christians should call him out on, as you have done so well here.
Thanks, Bill, for adding your eye witness support in exposing Staver for the person he actually is.
You know just how far off-base Staver is when even Fox news thinks his legal arguments are cra-cra.
You got that right, Charlie.
Interesting background info Jan. Thanks.
Thanks for your piece. Check yesterday’s Herald-Leader for a Letter to the Editor that I penned. Tried to forward it to you without success. Best to Joy. Penny
Sent from my iPhone
>
I will look it up, Penny. Thanks for the heads-up.
>