Let me say right off the bat that I don’t agree with what Kim Davis did. However, I found the hand wringing by Democrats and the media over her actions to be completely disingenuous and hypocritical. As many others have pointed out, Democrats have had no problem with county clerks who have refused to, say, issue gun licenses in compliance with court order.

Nonetheless, Democrats (and moderate Republicans) early rushed to the microphones across the country to condemn Kim Davis and to give us all a condescending civics lecture: “Listen, you crazy right wingers. Local officials can’t just decide they’re not going to comply with federal law because they don’t like the law. LAW OF THE LAND!”

It turns out, this principle applies pretty much exclusively to same sex marriage, in the minds of Democrats. When it comes to immigration, Democrats (and moderate Republicans) are perfectly fine with local officials thumbing their nose at Federal law:

The Senate failed to clear a procedural hurdle Tuesday on legislation that would have limited federal money awarded to so-called “sanctuary cities,” local jurisdictions that refuse to comply with aspects of federal immigration laws.

The vast majority of Democrats filibustered the measure, which fell six votes short of the number needed to end debate on the bill, 54-45. Illinois [mc_name name=’Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000360′ ] was the only Republican to vote against the measure, while Indiana’s [mc_name name=’Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’D000607′ ] and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin were the two Democrats voting in favor.

Please note well: the Constitution says nothing about the Federal government’s ability to define marriage; in fact, a fair reading of the Tenth Amendment would suggest that the matter is reserved exclusively to the States, and a colorable argument can be made that SCOTUS grossly exceeded their jurisdiction in Obergefell.

No such argument exists with respect to Congress’ ability to set immigration policy – Article 1, Section 8 reserves this right to the Federal government and to Congress specifically. There is literally no argument that local governments (including cities) have the right to refuse to comply with Federal law on immigration.

And yet, all the same people who tsk tsk’ed at Kim Davis and her supporters as though they don’t understand the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution actually cast votes in the Senate to protect local officials who are doing the exact same thing Kim Davis did.

Clearly, Kim Davis’ greatest failure was a PR failure. Instead of cloaking herself in “religious liberty,” she should have come up with a catchy phrase to describe what she did. Maybe she could have declared that Rowan County was a “sanctuary city” for traditional marriage and then dared the Democrats to attack the idea of “sanctuary cities” as ridiculous.

Regardless, Democrats have been exposed yet again as hypocrites who are completely without principle.