Kentucky clerk defies gay marriage court order again 'under God's authority'

It's a bit more complicated than that. She's a publically elected official, so they can't just fire her and she has refused to step down. She will be removed eventually, but in the meantime she's blocking any gay couples from getting married in her county. She appealed and a judge ordered her to comply with the law and she has still refused, so she has been jailed for contempt of court. She's not in jail because she's a bigot, she's in jail because she defied a court order. Civil contempt is a coercive measure, not punitive, meaning that it's intended to get someone who has disobeyed a court order to comply. The second she does, she goes free, but instead she deliberately chose jail.

-Byshop

Well if that's the case, there's no other choice I guess.

Omoshiroi, the past 8 years of liberal dominance and conservative marginalization in the U.S are finally mobilizing conservatives. It'd be interesting to see where the U.S will head with a Republican president in 2016.

Once something has been approved by the government, its no longer immoral

If she was offered that solution, that it could be handle all by her Deputy clerks, then she is a idiot for not taking it, but none of the news sites i have read said anything about that.

But if that really is the case then i hope she gets removed fast, because then it's pure hate and she is just using her religion as a cover.

That may very well be but Relativism isn’t true for me!

Correct Belief is not reason, but reason is used to judge a belief. We cannot as a society accept all as equals if some are only based on unreasonable foundations.

lol relax man.

Yeah. According to what I've read jail was a last resort for the judge. He gave her the opportunity to agree to do her job with no repercussions. That offer, in fact, still stands on the table whenever she chooses to take it. He felt that a fine would have been more appropriate in these circumstances EXCEPT FOR the fact that she was likely to thus face no repercussions in that case (and even profit from it) because outside funds would have likely been raised for her (such funds are apparently underway now, for that matter). Thus, she would have been able to continue to openly flout the law and deny others their rights while her fines were continually paid by those who support her.

This really is less about her, and more about removing her obstruction to others exercising their rights.

Yeah, basically because of what she's doing gay marriage is allowed everywhere in the country -except- for her county because she won't issue them nor will she willingly step aside for someone who will. She's not just refusing to issue the licenses herself, she's actively blocking people from getting married in her county because of -her- religion and that's a load of crap. Your belief system can dictate your behavior, but you have absolutely no right to try to dictate the behavior of others.

The only reason this is even an issue is because as an elected official who currently has active lawsuits with the county, she can't easily be removed.

-Byshop

@Jacanuk: Okay. What you might view as unreasonable is different than what the American government does as John Oliver discussed before announcing that he made a church just to show how easy it is.

http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/

What does this have to do with anything. The clerk is a wackjob...

It is against my religious convictions to hand out heterosexual marriage certificates.....

*Mike Huckabee cheers when I'm hauled off to jail*

Honestly the Republicans who have supported her have shown how fucking dumb they really are.. They constantly harp about government getting too big and government saying what we can and cannot do.. Yet they clap for this bitch in denying civilians their rights, violating the first amendment and secular law.. Have some damned consistency already... But why am I surprised, these are the same assholes who preach for smaller government but passed some of the largest government expanding acts in decades, like the Patrioit Act.. And are in full support of torture..

Into a black hole of insanity. None of the candidates are remotely capable of running a country under the Republican banner. They are all literally insane people. Especially Trump.

Oh yeah, the conservatives are getting loud. The only 'problem' is there aren't as many of them as they used to be, they're pissing off the demographics they need to win a general election and they keep putting up clowns as candidates.

With baby boomers quickly reaching oxygen-tank age, I don't see conservatives ever gaining strength...just a slow slide into a cold damp hole.

Apparently she could've been accommodated by having the licenses issued without her name affixed to it. It seems from this source that she would have accepted that, in fact the Kentucky Clerks Association has recommended that the forms be changed so that the clerks' names are no longer placed on the forms.

That seems a reasonable accommodation. As far as the jailing and contempt go, it seems like those things were done unnecessarily quickly.

I would hope the Republican candidates would at least pledge to pardon Davis if she is still in jail and they gain the White House. Davis is a Democrat so maybe she should file to run against Hillary in the primary, she might even beat her in some Southern states.

The government isn't an arbiter of morality. By that logic if the government approved killing off fat people, then that would be moral?

lmao Liberty Counsel

Not sure why I still take you seriously

lol

@GreySeal9: right, really she should run. I wouldn't be surprised if she got more votes than Hillary in some states. Plus on the off chance she wins the whole thing - then she can pardon herself and get out of jail. Though most likely the appeals court will let her go.

They're representing her in her trial, so I'd imagine they have more information than most other sources would have. But don't you think that would have been a reasonable way to accommodate her?

lol. You come up with the weirdest shit.

Why exactly does she need to be accommodated? She should have simply done her job like a normal person. And if she couldn't do her job because of religious reasons, she should have resigned.

This is not that complicated.

People usually just get fired for this sort of thing. Why is she in jail, again?

you cant fire an elected official. She is jailed until she resigns or does her job.

Hey, people can still run for president while they're in prison. It's been done before. Obviously they wouldn't be able to make campaign trips. In 1920 Eugene V. Debs ran for president when he was in federal prison. More recently in 2012 Keith Russell Judd, a convicted felon imprisoned in Texas, challenged Obama in the primary and got 41% of the vote in the West Virginia Democratic primary.

Oh. I thought she was just a clerk or something.

she's a clerk which is an elected official, so she can't be fired, she can only be removed by the legislature, which is not in session until 2016. The election for the legislature and new governor will take place this year.

This whole issue was over her not issuing marriage licenses, so now that they put her in jail how is she supposed to issue licenses if she is in jail? Well her deputies are issuing the licenses, but if they are issuing the licenses, then couldn't they have just done so all along regardless of what Davis says, which kind of makes the whole jailing seem unnecessary.

>how is she supposed to issue licenses if she is in jail?

by saying "Okay I'll do them" and then they release her. She can walk out any time if she wants to do the job she was elected for.

>then couldn't they have just done so all along regardless of what Davis says

No, that's her job, they are only doing it because she isn't there, and the judge who arrested her said if anyone else refuses they can join her in jail.

Nope, there is no reason to "accommodate" her. Do your job properly or don't do it at all, it's really that simple.

I wonder if we'd be having this conversation if it was a Muslim clerk at the DMV not issuing licenses to women.

I won't relax until I see a Republican president in 2016 :3

And yes, I'm calling it against all the odds.

I understand the conservative desire to see her pardoned, but in reality there are no grounds for it if the U.S wants to maintain the constitutional ethos of its regime and the role of law in general.

She's out of line I reckon but the defiance signifies the desperation of the conservative demographic in the U.S, a desperation that can push them to extreme measures.

Well, if people vote for her based on her staunch opposition to gay marriage then they would be morons. Not because of their personal opposition to gay marriage, but because of the idea that she could stop gay marriage from the White House.

Since the Supreme Court says that America can't deny homosexuals the right to marry, it isn't like she could pass an Executive Order banning gay marriage on her first day in office. Eventually, she would get impeached if she failed to uphold her duties. Bill Clinton got impeached for lying about getting blown by his intern.

People seem not to understand the duty she swore to uphold when she took the position.. No one forced her to take this position.. Seriously wtf guys? We didn't hear this kind of opposition to the ruling of Manning when he leaked intelligence because his ethics and morals drove him to do so.. IN fact the very people defending this bullshit are the very same people that wanted Manning executed because of him violating his oath and committing treason..

I'm all for gay marriage, but I find it weird so many gay people give some special significance to marriage over civil-unions when marriage is associated with a religion that has essentially persecuted them for hundreds of years.

Marriage is a legal contract. Religion has nothing to do with it.

If it did then how come atheists marrying is not an issue?

@sSubZerOo: You can't really compare this to what happened with Private Manning. Manning gave various reasons for leaking the intel, to include as retaliation to the Army for being mistreated for being gay (this was before Manning came out as transgender and was simply known as a gay male), but those reasons really didn't pass the test of being done for moral reasons. If you are opposed to secrecy, then you have a duty to bring this up when you are applying for a security clearance, even though doing so is a great way to get your application denied.

If it was a matter of morals, there are several legal ways to leak what a person thought was being classified illegally for the purpose of covering up crimes, from your chain of command, to even calling your Congressman. Instead, Manning dumped hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive documents onto the Internet, many of which wasn't vetted before being handed over to WikiLeaks and some containing tactics US troops use against insurgents, which is why the whistleblower defense wasn't going to work.

I don't agree with this woman's determination to oppose gay marriage when it is hurting others. She can reasonably argue that when she took the job she didn't know that she would have to sign gay marriage licenses, since when she took the job gay marriage wasn't legal at the time. However, since gay marriage is legal now, it would be in her best interest to resign if she can't bring herself to sign a marriage license for a same-sex couple. Otherwise, she is putting herself in a shitty situation for the purpose of pushing her religious beliefs on others.

Listen to this: The Westboro Baptist Church guys (those who hate gays) launch a tirade against Kim Davis instead of supporting her, not because she's a bigot or of her religious faith, but because she's an adulteress who married four husbands, and they tell her to leave the "man who is not her husband". Even worse, they claim that she enables gay marriage rather than the other way around! LOL! Seriously, what was that?

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/09/413342-westboro-astonishes-everyone-by-slamming-anti-gay-clerk-kim-davis-the-reason-why-is-vile-but-hilarious/

@chaoscougar1:
That statement is shockingly uninformed. I pray that is sarcasm.

@PernicioEnigma: Marriage existed long before christianity existed.

Well hundreds of brain dead religious zombies are protesting in support of her. Huckabee fans are getting desperate.

Marxist islamist Obummer is oppressing godfearing christians with his gayness.

lol Now that's just bad.

lol. Westboro Baptist Church is smarter than Jacanuk.

The liberal leanings of the American population are grossly overestimated. Between the fanatically conservative camp and the staunchly liberal one lies the preponderance of the American population. Under the right conditions, that preponderance gravitates to either camps. But even if we were to accept the minority of conservatives in the U.S, they make up for it in affluence and influence.

Whoever thinks conservatives are perishing has another thing coming as the next epoch will witness their revival.

It's not surprising that the liberalness of the American populace is overestimated on OT, libs dominate the media and academia and are more prominent in the entertainment industry, plus I think most people have a natural tendency to assume that other people think like they do. And from what I hear a lot of conservatives keep their views hidden and go along to get along.

@whipassmt: Hiding views to get along is exactly what I do at work and I hardly identify as a conservative.

[citation needed]