Police officer Leroy Smith helps an overheated man wearing National Socialist Movement attire up the stairs during a KKK rally & counter protest on July 18, 2015, in Columbia, S.C. Temperatures that day reached in the upper 90s.
Soon after the US Supreme Court final decision on marriage equality reports began to emerge from (mostly Southern) county clerks who claimed they can refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, despite the highest court’s order to do so. A handful were reported to have resigned their jobs, which I can respect if not particularly admire. I would equate it to a public school teacher from Alabama who quit in light of Brown vs Board of Education because she didn’t believe in integrated education. She too would deserve some credit for resigning and not engaging in narcissistic grandstanding on the job, unlike these state employees following the Obergefell decision in June, 2015.
The above photograph from this past weekend features another public employee. One who understands that freedom of speech and assembly are constitutional rights protecting all Americans, even for those views we find most odious. An African-American public employee who didn’t refuse to report to duty the day the Ku Klux Klan was to protest at the South Carolina capitol building. A public employee whose motto is likely “to protect and to serve”. In other words, someone who can put their job and the Constitution above personal beliefs–much less mere pique and pettiness.
CaucuttCaucus 