Shelly Luther: Locked Down, then Locked Up, and Now Free

The Texas Supreme Court ordered the release this morning of Shelly Luther after Dallas area state District Judge Eric Moyé had ordered her jailed for seven days on Tuesday for refusing to close her salon.

Moyé had suggested he would lighten her sentence “If you would … take this opportunity to acknowledge that your actions were selfish, putting your own interest ahead of those in the community in which you live.”

Luther refused his offer, saying “I have to disagree with you sir, when you say that I’m selfish because feeding my kids is not selfish. I have hairstylists that are going hungry because they’d rather feed their kids. So sir, if you think the law is more important than kids being fed then please go ahead with your decision but I’m not going to shut the salon.”

Some have claimed that Judge Moyé was just doing his job of upholding the law when he sent Shelly Luther to jail for operating her salon open in defiance of the orders from Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Even Abbott seemed to affirm the judge’s authority while disagreeing with his methods:

Compliance with executive orders during this pandemic is important to ensure public safety; however, surely there are less restrictive means to achieving that goal than jailing a Texas mother.

Here is the oath the judge took:

I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of __ the State of Texas, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God.

So the judge is to uphold not just the laws, but the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. And the Texas Constitution makes it clear that Texas distaster law is unconstitutional when it says that the edicts of the governor, etc. have the force of law. Only the Legislature can make laws. So a lot of the edicts we’ve seen from on high–state and local–should not be enforced. Like telling this lady she can’t operate her own business on her own property.

Additionally, some state quarantine laws–like Idaho; though not sure about Texas–focus on isolating the infected folks and quarantining those locations where the infected inhabit. They don’t give governors, mayors, or anyone else to lock up healthy people in their homes. This is in line with the Biblical approach to quarantine. Lepers, for instance, were isolated. Not the healthy. 

So both biblically and constitutionally, the lockdown is suspect if not clearly wrong. So we can say the same of Judge Moyé actions. And probably for the actions of the Texas Legisalture, Gov. Abbott, and numerous local officials in Texas cities and counties.

The right way to have gone about this is for the government to isolate the sick and then give us all the information we need so that citizens could make the decisions to protect ourselves AND others. Liberty is not about being selfish. It is about making decisions in the best interest of ourselves and others.

The fact that some people may be more libertine- than liberty-minded does not give the government the biblical, constitutional, or moral authority to lock them or the rest of us up in our homes and prevent us from operating our businesses. And though God will use oppression like this to the benefit of His people, that is simply not the way God designed us and the world to operate.