Earlier in July, I had highlighted some local drama going on in my lovely state of Kentucky involving clerks refusing to issue marriage licensing due to religiously held objections to same-sex marriage. These clerks weren’t just refusing licensing to same-sex couples, but everybody. Last we heard, everything was sitting on the desk of Federal District Judge Bunning, and the case to decide them all would be involving Kim Davis, a clerk over in Rowan county.
Earlier last week, Judge Bunning handed down his orders, telling her to essentially get off her prayer rug and go issue licenses to all, and that she cannot pick her beliefs above the oath of duties she took when brought into office. Her job doesn’t prevent her from practicing her faith, believing in her Creator, or believing that same-sex couples are an abomination. She is more than accommodated for, but this clerk is hell-bent on having everything down to the duties of her job, fall in line with her beliefs. It’s like a Muslim getting hired at a pork processing plant and then gets paid to sit back and not do his duties because pork is offensive to his beliefs. This isn’t reasonable accommodation, this is extortion!
What is really sad is that as soon as the ruling came down, her attorneys filed an appeal and a stay (which wasn’t granted) on the new order to issue marriage licensing, and on top of all of that? 
She is still refusing to issue licensing, along with her entire office. There are at least six other people in her office who can issue licenses, and they are not doing so. This case isn’t just about rights here, it’s about showmanship at the cost to the residents of Rowan county, and taxpayers in Kentucky. Who on earth is encouraging this clerk, and others in her position, to defy court orders, rack up legal bills, and pursue a martyr like headline?
Liberty Counsel. This is a Christian based law firm that pursues cases against laws that violate individuals rights to practice their belief. They also fight legislation that would further bring better justice for hate crime. Yeah, they quote the Bible in their briefs. They think kids should be allowed to choose their own counseling needs, which we know means they think that parents should be the ones deciding Johnny sees a church pastor and not a licensed psychologist, but let’s say it’s the kid’s choice, m’kay. This law firm is huge on “marriage protection”, as in one man and one woman. And they are using this clerk in Rowan county as another soon to fail test flight in the realm of theological favoritism in government.
I think if Kim Davis actually sat down and thought about her job without a bunch of headline greedy lawyers in her ear, common sense would prevail here. Find a different job, or allow others in her office to proceed issuing licensing as the law of the land dictates. But she is on the road to self-inflicted martyrdom and inflated egoism. We have yet another tax payer funded case of religious “look at me and my oppression”, when the only real oppressor is the clerk. She is taking it upon herself to dictate the lives of others, gay or straight, and whether they can have legally recognized unions in her county.
This isn’t martyrdom, my dear, this is tyranny.
Via The New York Times:
MOREHEAD, Ky. — Nearly two months after the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, a county clerk’s office here — in defiance of a federal court order — turned away several gay couples seeking marriage licenses on Thursday, taking a stand that has infuriated gay rights advocates but buoyed Christian conservatives who insist their religious freedoms are being violated.
Kim Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, who says her Christian faith bars her from authorizing same-sex marriages, has refused to issue any licenses, either to same-sex or heterosexual couples after the historic ruling in June in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges. She has ignored a direct order from Gov. Steven L. Beshear that she do so.
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On Wednesday, Judge David L. Bunning of United States District Court for Eastern Kentucky, ruling in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four couples — two same-sex and two heterosexual — ordered Ms. Davis to resume issuing licenses. But lawyers for Ms. Davis immediately appealed and sought a stay; Thursday morning, Ms. Davis did not show up at work.
Outside the brick and granite county courthouse on Main Street here, a small group of protesters gathered under a rainbow-colored umbrella as David Ermold, 41, and his partner, David Moore, 39, arrived around 8 a.m. seeking a license — only to be told by Ms. Davis’ deputies that none would be issued.
“People are cruel, and this is wrong,” said Mr. Ermold. He and Mr. Moore have lived in Morehead for 11 years, and said they felt humiliated by their experience, and by the suggestion from Ms. Davis’s lawyers that they could go to another Kentucky county to get a marriage license.
“Telling people to go to another county is like saying, ‘We don’t want your kind of people here,’ ” Mr. Moore said.
Advocates for gay rights say Ms. Davis, a member of an Apostolic Christian church who says she attends “whenever the doors are open,” is an outlier. The vast majority of public officials are carrying out the Obergefell decision — even if they disagree with it — and gay men and lesbians across America are marrying largely with ease. But Morehead, a city of about 6,900 people in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, is not the only pocket of resistance.
Read the entire here at NYT’s website.
