“Laws For Thee, But Not For Me”: Kentucky’s Kim Davis Jailed, Held In Contempt
Federal judges really don’t like it when people ignore court orders and claim the law doesn’t apply to them.
A federal judge has ordered a Kentucky clerk to jail after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, was found in contempt of court on Thursday morning…. Davis, in tears, said on the stand that she could not comply with the judge’s order. U.S. Marshals later took her into custody.
As she was being led out of the courtroom, the clerk said, “Thank you, judge.”
Davis, if you’re just joining us, is paid by taxpayers to issue marriage licenses, but she refuses to provide licenses to couples she finds morally objectionable, citing “God’s authority.” Davis and her lawyers have filed several appeals, all of which lost.
She could, of course, find some other job – one that doesn’t pit her professional responsibilities against her spiritual beliefs – but she refuses to do so. As we talked about yesterday, Davis feels entitled to keep her job and refuse to do her job at the same time.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning, appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, apparently didn’t find this persuasive.
Just so news consumers are clear, if you hear that Davis was jailed for her opposition to marriage equality, this is incorrect. She was taken into custody because she deliberately, brazenly ignored a court order. Davis was bound, not only to perform her official duties, but also to follow the law. She refused and is now in contempt of court.
Marriage-equality proponents did not ask the judge in the case to take her into custody, but by some measures, Judge Bunning didn’t have much of a choice.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 3, 2015
“The Four-Time Bride Who Won’t Let Gays Get Married”: What Part Of “Separation Of Church And State” Doesn’t She Understand?
If ever there was an argument to make teenagers take citizenship exams before they can get a high-school diploma, it’s the Kentucky clerk who won’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and her all too supportive husband. Make that fourth husband.
“They want us to accept their beliefs and their ways. But they won’t accept our beliefs and our ways,” Joe Davis said of gay protesters at the Rowan County Courthouse, The Associated Press reported. “Their beliefs and their ways” is a reference to gay people who are trying to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s June ruling that they have a constitutional right to marry. “Our beliefs and our ways” refers to his wife Kim’s contention that she has the right to ignore the high court in favor of “God’s authority.”
That authority apparently includes godly approval to marry four times in a life so wildly imperfect that U.S. News & World Report could write this paragraph: “She gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. They were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second.” All is now cool, though. According to her lawyer, Davis converted to Christianity a few years ago and her slate was wiped clean.
Would it be churlish to mention here that Davis has denied a marriage license several times to David Moore and David Ermold, who have been together for 17 years? Also, exactly what part of “separation of church and state” doesn’t she understand?
Davis has been sued for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and the Supreme Court declined Monday to get involved. She can’t be fired because she was elected to her position, but she could be found in contempt of court.
The honorable thing would be to step down, as county clerks have done in states such as Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. There is a long, long tradition of resignations over conscience issues. But Davis would rather keep her job and exempt herself from whatever she thinks her religion demands, regardless of how that affects the lives of the taxpayers she is supposed to serve.
There is plenty of precedent for exemptions based on faith or personal morality, of course. Conscientious objectors in wartime. Doctors who oppose abortion. And for over a year now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, certain corporations run by religious families who don’t want to offer insurance coverage for contraception methods they consider tantamount to abortion.
Yet war is a matter of life and death, and for those who believe that life begins at conception, so is abortion. Gay marriage is different. Nobody is at risk of dying, not even a fertilized embryo. Beyond the happy couple, in fact, few—if any—are affected at all.
So it’s hard to see this Kentucky case as anything but religion injected into the public sphere, with intent to discriminate against adults who are pining to make the ultimate commitment to one another. Some of them already have done so informally, for years and years, their unions far more enduring than those Davis cemented with official vows. All they are asking now is to be married in the eyes of society, the law and their God.
Why would people want to deny others rights and happiness in their personal lives, which should be none of their business? Why is it so hard for some people to embrace or at least accept diversity? Human differences — of appearance, temperament, chemistry, biology and all the rest — are clearly part of The Plan, whether the design is God’s or nature’s or not a design at all.
Back in 2009, Gallup found “a strong case that knowing someone who is gay or lesbian fosters more accepting attitudes on many of the issues surrounding gay and lesbian relations today.” In 2013, three-quarters in a Gallup poll said they personally knew a friend, relative or co-worker who was gay or lesbian. This year, 6 in 10 people said gay marriage should be legal. Not surprisingly, that was a record high.
The Davis case is now a headline cause for Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit “litigation, education and policy organization” that offers pro bono legal assistance in cases related to its mission of “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family.” But the data — and the Supreme Court moves — underscore that Davis, Liberty Counsel and their allies are outliers, bucking social and political trends that are rapidly leaving them behind.
By: Jill Lawrence, The National Memo, September 3, 2015
“Never Mind The Law Of The Land”: Defending The God-Given Liberty Of County Clerks To Ignore Duties They Don’t Like
It’s sometimes easy to forget with all the presidential campaign stuff going on, but there will be gubernatorial elections in two states this November, Kentucky and Louisiana. And while the latter may really amount to a bipartisan celebration that Bobby Jindal’s finally leaving the office he’s become bored with as anything other than a presidential campaign prop, the former bids fare to be a good old-fashioned partisan cliffhanger. In a state that’s been trending pretty sharply Republican, however, Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway remains the betting favorite over Republican nominee Matt Bevin, best known as the Tea Party dude who got crushed by Mitch McConnell in a 2014 Senate primary.
But Bevin seems to think he’s found a big vote-pleaser, per the Louisville Courier-Journal‘s Phillip Bailey:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin said during a national conference call Tuesday he fully supports Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ right to refuse gay couples seeking marriage licenses.
“I absolutely support her willingness to stand on her First Amendment rights,” he said. “Without any question I support her.”
The strong defense of Davis’ actions underscores how the GOP nominee hopes to make the fight over gay marriage a centerpiece of the 2015 governor’s race, which polling shows is a tight race between him and Democratic nominee Jack Conway.
Conway’s position is that the Supreme Court decision striking down Kentucky’s same-sex marriage ban is the law of the land, and as such everyone, even public officials, should obey it (snark intended). There’s abundant evidence this is the way the wind’s blowing everywhere, which is why most Republican pols have stopped talking about the issue except when they are trapped in some church basement with members of their party base.
Bevin does, however, have a broader vision: like his junior senator, Rand Paul, he’s talking about getting government out of the marriage business altogether.
There’s the obvious problem with this idea, of course, that it strands the many, many policies Republicans favor that are linked to marital status. But beyond that, isn’t it a little drastic to separate marriage from the state when the issue at hand is the tender consciences of county clerks? I mean, perhaps I don’t understand Kentucky, and maybe county clerks there wield unusual power and possess unusual prestige, like sheriffs in Louisiana or water district councils in California. But if not, it may take Bevin a while to explain to regular Kentuckians that they should no longer be in state-sanctioned marriages because some county clerk wants to get paid to do some but not all of her job.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, September 2, 2015
“Freedom Not To Do Her Job Whenever She Feels Like It”: Kentucky Clerk, Kim Davis, Ignores Court Rulings, Cites ‘God’s Authority’
Kentucky’s Kim Davis ran out of legal options yesterday. The clerk, who opposes marriage equality for religious reasons, has refused to issue marriage licenses to couples she decides are morally objectionable, despite the fact that Davis is paid to issue marriage licenses.
She and her attorney took the matter to court, and a federal district court judge said Davis could either follow the law or get a new job. She took her case to the 6th Circuit, which is pretty conservative, but which nevertheless rejected her case. Last week, Davis appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which turned the case away yesterday.
All of which led to this morning, when Davis decided to ignore the court rulings, the law, and her official responsibilities. MSNBC’s Emma Margolin reported:
A Kentucky clerk is still refusing to issue marriage licenses due to her religious opposition to same-sex nuptials, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, even after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the final blow to her argument.
On Tuesday morning, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis denied marriage licenses to at least two couples, telling them she was acting “under God’s authority.” She then asked David Moore and David Ermold, a couple who has been rejected by her office four times, to leave.
When the local resident said, “We’re not leaving until we have a license,” Davis responded, “Then you’re going to have a long day.”
The Lexington Herald-Leader reported this morning that the federal judge in the case ordered Davis to “appear in his courtroom Thursday and explain why she should not be held in contempt of court.”
As a rule, judges tend not to like it when citizens ignore the law and deliberately defy court orders. It’s worth noting for context that U.S. District Judge David Bunning, appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, is presiding over the case.
It seems likely that Kim Davis will become a cause celebre in conservative circles, a status that will grow if she’s jailed for contempt. But given every relevant detail, it’s awfully difficult to see her in a sympathetic light.
Davis is paid by the taxpayers of Rowan County to, among other things, issue marriage licenses to couples. But she doesn’t like issuing marriage licenses, at least not to everyone entitled to them.
As Davis sees it, she wants to keep her job, and continue to receive taxpayer-financed paychecks, but she also wants the freedom not to do her job whenever she feels it.
The local clerk could simply find some other line of work – one that doesn’t cause a conflict between her spiritual beliefs and her responsibilities – but Davis doesn’t want that, either. As far as Davis is concerned, she can refuse to do her job and she can refuse to find a different job.
It seems likely the federal judge will explain to her that her posture is untenable.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 1, 2015
“Martyrs To Marriage Equality”: The Famous Bakers And Florists Of Conscience
The thing that really amazes me about much of the conservative reaction to Obergefell v. Hodges, and indeed much of the religion-based complaints over LGBT rights generally, is the sense of personal grievence. I mean, on the one hand you’ve had people who’ve been persecuted, bullied, denied equal rights for ages, finally getting the right to do something the rest of us take for granted, and on the other hand you have people who are offended by them. This helps explain the hilarious fixation among conservatives about identifying the fifteen people in America who might be so homophobic that their “religious views” come into direct conflict with anti-discrimination laws–you know, the famous Bakers and Florists of Conscience. Agitating the air to make this extremely marginal “grievance” into something tangible, and then inflating it wildly with all sorts of specious slippery-slope arguments that next thing we know the Catholic Church will be forced to make gay sex a sacrament, has pretty much been the sum and substance of the “religious liberty” backlash.
And so today we find all too many Christian conservatives unable to feel empathy towards people expressing joy at their now-established ability to get married, and instead making themselves out as martyrs, to the everlasting embarrassment, I am quite sure, of the actual Christian Martyrs of the Ages who suffered harm to more than their sensitivities or prejudices.
I was driven to write this today not by Bobby Jindal or Mike Huckabee or the other pols trying to put themselves at the head of a pathetic parade of outrage, but by a post at the Federalist by “international pro-family” advocate John-Henry Westen warning of the totalitarian repression about to hit Christians, as evidenced by his experience with what had happened in Canada and Europe.
And of what is this wave of repression composed? Basically lawsuits, most of them withdrawn.
As anyone who has been to law school can tell you, there is no place short of Utopia without constant, frequent lawsuits, some serious, some frivolous. Neighbors battle in court against neighbors for decades over ridiculously small boundary disputes; disgrunted employees and employers carry their disagreements into courts every day; divorcing and ex-spouses ruin themselves and each other in the fight for the last word almost as often as they don’t. If, as several of the examples offered by Western suggest, he thinks the Roman Catholic Church is going to be nailed to a cross of LGBT litigation, I would suggest there’s another source of lawsuits that is rather obviously a bigger threat.
Westen does have an alternative argument against legalized same-sex marriage that’s not about the terrible martyrdom that awaits any dissenter against the Rainbow Fascist State. In a reductio ad absurdum of the hate the sin, love the sinner chestnut, he argues love for gay people compels not letting them get married:
[B]ecause same-sex relationships hurt everyone involved, marriage supporters have a duty to oppose inverted relationships out of love and compassion.
Despite being perhaps 4 percent of the U.S. population, the LGBT community sees devastating levels of HIV/AIDS, depression, anal cancer, suicide, shorter lifespans, and other ailments. Again, it is up to Christians, and especially our pastors, to energize society with the beautiful love of our faith. We never should have given up talking about sex [sic!], and we must start doing so anew.
As former Canadian LGBT leader Gens Hellquist said in 2006, “I am tired of watching my community die” of diseases endemic to the LGBT community. A Catholic with a master’s degree in psychology who visited a ward for HIV/AIDS patients in India, he saw it was clear that only monogamous, marital relationships are healthy for human beings.
So there you have it: we need to prevent people from getting married so as to force them into “monogamous, marital relationships.”
That’s the second biggest howler in Westen’s piece (or maybe the third, after the claim that conservative Christians don’t talk enough about sex!). The biggest is in the headline: “Same-Sex Marriage Won’t Bring Us Peace.” Nor will it bring us 4% GDP growth or a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The idea is to bring us justice. But on second thought, there is a connection, or so thought Pope Paul VI, who famously said: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Editor, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, June 26, 2015
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