The right wing group known as the Oathkeepers has stepped into the picture.  Made up of former military and police officers, they promised to defend Kim if the judge who placed her in jail tries any further unconstitutional proposal against her.  Oathkeepers showed up in Ferguson, Missouri uninvited and armed with assault rifles promising to defend private property.  Their founder says the Federal Judge who placed Kim in jail over stepped his boundary.  It appears lots of folks have legal opinions on the issue.  Some of them are heavily armed.
     Ignoring Federal rulings and mandates has a rich history in the South.  Juneteenth is the Black holiday in Texas  honoring the release of slaves after the Civil War.  This took place, depending on the location, anywhere from one or two years after the emancipation of freed slaved was decreed.  Texas slave holders and some sheriffs refused to obey the ruling and kept slaves well after the verdict.
     Disobeying the law is not new to some fathers of the Religious Right.  Mark Sutherland in his book, Judicial Tyranny, writes that the President must appoint Supreme Court Judges who will uphold the laws of God from which the Constitution is based.   In the New Testament book of Acts Christians noted they had decided to obey God instead of the state.  This issue was a religious liberty conflict about their desire to spread the story of Jesus.  This passage is often cited by activists who declare that believers must obey God rather than human laws.   The other side of that coin is the mandate offered by
Apostles Paul and Peter who wrote that believers must obey rulers in higher authority.  People who are in public office are servants of God and deserve obedience.  Sutherland and company are more prone to cite the Acts passage rather than the later Biblical advice.  Michelle Bachman reasons the activist court is stepping far beyond its boundaries and needs to be ruled out of order itself by the Federal Government.  
     The prospect that God's laws trumped man's laws drew a response from comedian Bill Maher.  Maher noted we live in America, not Saudi Arabia.  Just exactly which interpretation of Divine law one follows is the problem the founding fathers saw coming.  There are a few in the Religious Right who could demand that Divine law mandates capital punishment for homosexuals.  Not to mention those who refuse to attend a Protestant church on Sunday.  The argument that granting multiple divorces, as in the case of Davis, raises another Biblical argument.  The candidate who is second in the GOP poles would be in violation of divine law in many circles because he chooses to attend church on Saturday.  The obvious problem arises as to who determines this.  Most of us do not want the government to be in the business of defining what is good religion.
     Mike Huckabee's proposal that the Supreme Court decision is not Constitutional has found affirmation from this crowd.  Huckabee's favorite historian, David Barton, claims the founding fathers set up a system where God's law over rides the laws of the state.  
     Texas evangelist Lester Roloff is the classic study regarding disobedience to legal and judicial rulings in the name of the Christian faith.  Roloff got into a spat with the Supreme Court and the Attorney General in Texas.  The conflict stemmed from his court ordered incarceration for wayward girls.  Lester used the state's referral to force girls to listen to his sermons, sometimes for twenty fours in solitary confinement.  He also beat the girls with leather whips taking religious coercion to new heights in Texas.  When the courts demanded he obtain a license to operate his homes, he fought them over the argument of separation of church and state.   (Interesting these types say the idea of separation is not Constitutional yet when they can use it are willing advocates.)  He went to his grave claiming he had defeated the Supreme Court and won the case through his own civil disobedience.  
      First Baptist Church in Dallas is another case study in the conflict.  I listened to the Youtube video with former member H.L. Hunt defending his activism.  Hunt stated the media is 85% controlled by the enemy.  He assumed it only natural he give the millions of listeners to his programming the correct viewpoint.  This led to the IRS ruling that the radio broadcasts needed to be taxed.  He lied claiming there were churches funding this media event.  The government next stepped in stating that partisan events, even if they are from a church, are not tax exempt.  An alumni letter from my seminary carried with it an opinion from a trustee who was also an attorney from Dallas First.  He noted this law is not Constitutional and need not be heeded.  Senator Ted Cruz's father shared the same opinion about this government ruling.  It need not be followed and was an infringement upon First Amendment rights.  
     Ted Cruz's home church invited Judge Roy Moore to share his personal story of how he was persecuted by the nation for posting the Ten Commandments in the public square.  Randall Terry, once head of Operation Rescue, wrote that judicial decrees were to be used as toilet paper.  They held no binding rights on his Christian activism.    Southern governors have a rich history regarding Federal Court rulings regarding integration of public school institutions.  Fact is, they were all over ruled and caved in.  This does not appear to be the modern trend.  Rick Perry threatened to disregard the Obama healthcare legislation claiming Texas was an Independent Republic and Federal legislation was not binding here.  
     Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher, refused to pay his lease fees for his use of public lands.  His stand off was backed up by armed Militias.  The Federal officials backed down and rode out of town.  He might have added momentum to a growing civil unrest.  Militia types have for decades declared the government has no right to levy taxes, register automobiles or regulate Federal land.  Hard core Religious Right types believe the only local government is to be a sheriff.  The only legal Federal organization is an armed force to defend the nation.  
     Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a modern version of the old argument.  He was able to keep the Ten Commandment monument posted in Austin by a strange ruling from the Supreme Court.  He must know that Oklahoma, much more Republican than Texas, ruled the monument in Oklahoma City had to go.  Abbott still boasts of his refusal to go by Federal rulings on school and religious establishment issues.  He acts as if Federal regulations do not apply.  He appears to have the backing of district courts in the state.  Several Texas schools have held onto school prayer traditions flaunting their nose at Federal and state mandates.  I have had former school administrators tell me they placed money in their budgets to fight enforcement of these national mandates in court.
     The Southern Poverty Law Center writes that an organization of sheriffs have made it known they will not enforce any federal law or ruling on gun control.  Mike Huckabee says, "an unjust law is no law at all."       Baptist historian, Dr. Bill Leonard, compared the Kim Davis incident with the Scopes Trial on evolution.  He notes there is still unresolved conflict that was never settled from the trial.  Leonard wrote, "open debate on law and conscious continues."  Regional parties are shoring up legal actions to counter the court rulings on same sex marriage.  In more discrete terms than Randal Terry, court orders are not worth the paper they are written on.  
     One fact stands out in all the conflict.  No Southern politician has ever lost a following or gone broke by defying a Federal ruling.  If you listen closely to one of the tapes from the deceased Roloff, you might catch him chuckling in the back ground.  
     Disobeying court orders is not new.  The fact that more and more are getting away with it is.  As usual, we citizens will take these cases to the courts for them to settle our disputes.  If we have lost our respect for the rulings of these courts, where are the real boundaries in our society?