Once upon a time, in a land not at all far away, there were two women engaged in public service. The first woman was an elected constitutional officer, charged with executing state laws, who found herself in a conflict of conscience when she was asked to execute a law that she believed to be constitutionally invalid. She further thought that executing the law would cause her to violate her religious beliefs. She had three choices: resign, violate her conscience, or refuse to execute the law. She chose the last option and suffered negative consequences at the hand of a judge, causing great division in the realm of public opinion.
Her case attracted the attention of a Senator in Washington, D.C., who decided to vocalize his support of her repeatedly and ardently. He said the judge who punished her was “fundamentally wrong,” and that forcing her to chose between resignation and violating her conscience was “inconsistent with the first Amendment.” He said she was being persecuted for her religious beliefs, and that she should not be forced to “choose between honoring…her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.” In response to those who argued she should merely resign if executing a law caused her to violate her religious beliefs, this Senator said that was unacceptable, because it would mean all people who shared her conviction could not hold public office. “That is not America,” he said.
In the same land, there was a second woman, who was an appointed constitutional officer, charged with executing federal laws. She found herself in a conflict of conscience when she was asked to execute and defend a law she believed to be constitutionally invalid. She further thought executing the law would violate her convictions regarding religious liberty for all. She had three choices: resign, violate her conscience, or refuse to execute and defend the law. She chose the last option and suffered negative consequences at the hand of her supervisor, causing great division in the realm of public opinion.
Her case attracted the attention of that same Senator in Washington, D.C., who decided to vocalize his opposition to her repeatedly and ardently. He said she was “ignominious” and “put brazen partisan interests above fidelity to the law.” He said that refusing to “carry out her constitutional duty to enforce and defend the law” justified her punishment. He called her partisanship “lawless” and affirmed his support of her supervisor’s actions.
You may have guessed that the first woman is Kim Davis, Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk of Court, and the second Sally Yates, Acting Attorney General of the United States. The Senator was Ted Cruz from Texas. Now their situations were not identical: Davis was elected, Yates appointed. Davis was jailed; Yates fired. Davis claimed personal religious convictions, and Yates claimed an ethical duty to uphold the law and not violate religious liberties for others. Davis was reacting to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment and Yates to an executive order. For the purposes of this essay, however, these are distinctions without a difference.
In a way I am being unfair to Davis, Yates, and especially Cruz. Examples of such political inconsistencies are rampant and bipartisan. It is, however, an interesting and readily available case study of how context can inform and affect principles.
Those who generally oppose Senator Cruz are quick to label this as hypocrisy. Before we retreat there, though, consider all those who had opposite inclinations—who praised Sally Yates for being a woman of principle but condemned Kim Davis for her bigotry. Are these examples simply not equivalent or do they have something valuable to teach us about pluralism in American society?
We all give lip service to the preeminence of the Rule of Law, but examples such as this illustrate how our most fundamental moral convictions color our views of a particular law and the strength with which it should be enforced. There is no simple solution to political inconsistency, but framing the issue correctly and adopting a few intellectual habits can help sooth the toxic political climate considerably.
First, engage in intensive self-examination. What were your reactions to Kim Davis and Sally Yates? What were your reactions to Ted Cruz’s reactions? Think of the last time you read a Supreme Court opinion and agreed that it upheld the rule of law but disagreed with the policy embedded in the law. This should not be a rare occurrence if we are doing it right. How often is our reaction to the presentation of an argument with which we disagree an accusation of hypocrisy rather than a substantive critique? If after a period of honest self-examination, you are not feeling a little sheepish about the regularity with which you call others political hypocrites, you are either to be applauded for your intellectual integrity or censured for your dishonesty.
Second, be generous in your identification of political hypocrisy. Maybe you have misidentified the fundamental moral allegiance of the alleged hypocrite and it is not hypocrisy you see but inconsistency or disagreement at the level of moral principle. Be at least as generous with others as you want them to be with you. Golden Rule your political rhetoric.
Finally, embrace civic pluralism. Whether you want to admit it, you have already done so in many arenas of your life. Failure to tithe is not illegal, pride is not illegal, men wearing pastel rompers is not illegal—as much as you may feel the moral underpinnings of such things with every fiber of your being, you have probably accepted the fact that pluralism necessitates the legality of things you consider to be immoral. Advocating for old-fashioned norms is not illegal, having a framed picture of Robert E. Lee on your wall is not illegal, truck nutz are not illegal. As much as you may feel the moral underpinnings of such things with every fiber of your being, your lip service and activism on behalf of civic pluralism necessitates you recognize and embrace the legality of things you consider to be immoral.
And, friends, this is a good thing. We are regrettably near-sighted people historically, geographically, and morally. Sometimes we have to be jarred out of our complacent dogmatism and introduced to other ways of thinking about things. You may encounter these new ideas in diverse friendships or you may discover them in ancient texts. They may not persuade you, but they will change you for the better.
We are currently testing the limits of pluralism in our society and collectively wondering whether our American institutions and commitments to both freedom and moral conviction can withstand the pressures of diversity. Flourishing life together, not homogenous thought, lifestyle, or conviction, is the goal, though. The desired conclusion to this story is not a Cruz, Yates, and Davis that finally all agreed with each other about everything, but rather a world in which they all lived together…happily ever after.
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