\n\tKim Davis has become a symbol. To some, she represents a stubborn bigotry; to others, she\u2019s a twenty-first-century American heroine.\n\t<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s an unlikely fate for the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk, who labored in relative obscurity until the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s June verdict in\tObergefell v. Hodges<\/em>, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tDavis, who identifies as an Apostolic Christian, objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds. That conflicted with her legal responsibilities as an \n\tBut her arguments didn\u2019t sway U.S. district judge David L. Bunning.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn this country, we live in a society of laws,\u201d Bunning told her. \u201cOur system of justice requires citizens—and significantly, elected officials—to follow \n\tHe then ordered Davis to jail for violating the latest court order to issue licenses. Five of her six deputy clerks began issuing the licenses in her \n\tBy the time the clerk appeared in front of Bunning, she\u2019d exhausted her legal options.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tThe American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky sued Davis in her official capacity, on behalf of four couples denied a marriage license by her office. \n\tThe courts disagreed. One by one they ordered her to issue the licenses. After she failed to convince the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to \n\tSo she violated it.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m not being disrespectful to you,\u201d she told David Ermold and David Moore in August. \u201cI just want you all to know we are not issuing marriage licenses \n\t\u201cUnder whose authority?\u201d they asked.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cUnder God\u2019s authority,\u201d Davis responded. \u201cI\u2019m willing to face my consequences, and you all will face your consequences when it comes time for judgment.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tShe then asked the pair to leave because they were \u201cinterrupting business.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tCritics have argued that throughout her interactions with couples and the courts, Davis has made it clear that she believes her personal religious beliefs \n\tDespite this, Davis is not out of a job. She\u2019s an elected official, which means the state legislature must vote to impeach her. Rowan County attorneys have \n\tIt\u2019s a daunting process. According to BuzzFeed News, Kentucky hasn\u2019t voted to impeach a public official since 1916. Davis might be the next. She might also \n\tWhitley County\u2019s Kay Schwartz told WFPL News, an NPR affiliate, that she is issuing licenses to heterosexual couples, but not to same-sex couples. She \n\tBut another Kentucky clerk decided to take a more public stand.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tCasey Davis, who clerks in Casey County and is no relation to Kim, also believes that Beshear trampled the Rowan County clerk\u2019s rights—as well as his own. \n\t\u201c\u2018Issue marriage licenses or resign\u2019—those were the words,\u201d he told reporters after a July meeting with the governor. \u201cI can\u2019t quit . . . I have a mortgage \n\tNo one has sued Casey Davis for his stance yet, but he\u2019s stayed in the headlines. In what he described as an attempt to direct attention to Kim Davis\u2019 \n\t\u201cI cannot let my sister go to jail without my doing something to let others know about her plight,\u201d he told WKYT, a local CBS affiliate.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tKim Davis is now out of jail, but her legal saga struggles on. By presstime, she continues to alter marriage licenses issued by the county. Each license \n\tMeanwhile, Kim and Casey both appeared at this year\u2019s Values Voter Summit to garner further support for their religious freedom claims.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tThey don\u2019t lack for political endorsements.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t \u201cI stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her \n\tHe continued, \u201cKim Davis should not be in jail. We are a country founded on Judeo-Christian values, founded by those fleeing religious oppression and \n\tCruz later appeared at a jailhouse rally organized to celebrate her release. To his chagrin, another GOP candidate turned that rally into a campaign stop. \n\t\u201cIf you have to put someone in jail, let me go,\u201d he announced. \u201cEvery one of us will have to decide whether we want to keep this great country or whether \n\tOther endorsements prove more elusive. In late September, the Liberty Counsel announced that Pope Francis met with Kim during his U.S. tour as a show of \nTo some observers, the case is little more than wish fulfillment for the Religious Right. Its leaders have long predicted Christian persecution in post-\tObergefell <\/em>America.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tIn March the Liberty Counsel\u2019s founder, Mat Staver, said he \u201cpersonally will advocate disobedience to it [marriage equality].\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tAnd Kim Davis and her Kentucky compatriots aren\u2019t the only government officials to take up the cause.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\tIn Alabama, nine counties still refuse to issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of sexual orientation; Americans United\u2019s legal team continues to \n\tThese refusals, coupled with legislative attempts in several states to create legal loopholes for public officials who seek to exempt themselves from \n\tThose couples now occupy a strange paradox: Marriage equality is the law of the land, but the rights it guarantees are sometime inaccessible to them.\n\t<\/p>\n \nDr. April Miller of Morehead, Kentucky, lived that paradox when Kim Davis refused to grant her a marriage license. Miller recently told\tChurch & State <\/em>why she decided to take the matter to court.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe went to get our marriage license in Rowan County because we are residents here,\u201d Miller, a professor of special education at Morehead State University, \n\tShe explained that she and her fianc\u00e9e, Karen Roberts, had originally planned to marry in July but were unable to do so thanks to Kim Davis.\n\t<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe had seen the news that our county clerk was not issuing marriage licenses to anyone,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThis report made me quite angry, and I found it \n\tMiller turned to the ACLU, and in short order she and Roberts became one of four plaintiff couples. On September 4 Miller and Roberts finally received \n\tMost Rowan County deputy clerks are willing to issue licenses to same-sex couples, and Bunning has ordered Kim Davis not to interfere. But she might \n\t \u201cDavis believes her religious beliefs give her the right to tell others what to do,\u201d Americans United executive director Barry W. Lynn remarked. \u201cHer Kim Davis has become a symbol. To some, she represents a stubborn bigotry; to others, she\u2019s a twenty-first-century American heroine. It\u2019s an unlikely fate for the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk, who labored in relative obscurity until the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s June verdict in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Davis, who identifies as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[310],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-6339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-february-2016","tag-january-february-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\telected official, so she ceased issuing marriage licenses—to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. She also blocked her six deputy clerks from doing so
\n\tin her stead, arguing that because her name appears on each marriage certificate issued by the county, her religious-freedom rights would still be
\n\tviolated. Her refusal earned her a semi-permanent spot in the headlines for months.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tthe rules of the courts.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tstead, so Bunning released Davis on the condition she\u2019d stop interfering with their ability to do so.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tDavis quickly filed a suit of her own. Represented by the Liberty Counsel, she sued the state\u2019s Democratic governor, Steve Beshear, for allegedly violating
\n\ther religious-freedom rights by ordering the state\u2019s clerks to issue licenses to same-sex couples.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tgrant her the exemption she sought, Davis appealed to the Supreme Court for relief. It was a futile effort: The justices unanimously denied her request to
\n\tstay the order.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\ttoday pending the appeal in the Sixth Circuit.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tsupersede the Supreme Court\u2019s interpretation of the Constitution.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\talready begun that process by referring to the state attorney general for a misconduct charge.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tnot be the last: two more Kentucky county clerks have also refused to issue licenses.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tdoesn\u2019t appear hungry for the limelight. \u201cDon\u2019t stir this, please,\u201d she begged the station. Until someone sues Schwartz for her actions, she\u2019s likely to
\n\tget her wish.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tLike Kim, Casey is demanding a religious exemption from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. To date, he hasn\u2019t succeeded.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tto pay.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tplight, he recently biked from his home in Pikeville to Paducah, more than 400 miles away.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tbears the signature of a notary public in place of her own, and the ACLU says that may violate Bunning\u2019s order to issue the licenses.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tfaith or complying with a lawless court opinion,\u201d U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) asserted in a statement released after Bunning ordered her to jail.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tseeking a land where we could worship God and live according to our faith, without being imprisoned for doing so.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tFormer Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee escorted Davis from the detention center, and told an adoring crowd he wanted to take her place.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\twe want to surrender and sacrifice it to tyranny.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tsupport for her cause. The Vatican swiftly tried to squash that claim; its spokesman, Frederico Lombardi, confirmed the meeting but said that it should not
\n\tbe construed as a papal endorsement.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tpursue legal action to get them to comply with the law. And a Marion County, Oregon, judge is currently under investigation by a judicial ethics commission
\n\tfor refusing to perform any weddings rather than preside at a same-sex ceremony.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tcomplying with the Obergefell <\/em>verdict, have created an uneven legal landscape for couples in many municipalities.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tsaid. \u201cThis is where we have lived, worked, played, volunteered, voted, and paid our taxes for exactly nine years. This is our community.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tincredible that after the wait for this ruling, someone who was opposed to it would block my right to purchase a marriage license.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\ttheir marriage license and are in the process of planning their wedding. The matter is settled—for now.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tviolate the court\u2019s order again. \u201cShe loves God, she loves people, she loves her work, and she will not betray any of those three,\u201d Staver told CNN after
\n\tDavis\u2019 release. \u201cShe\u2019ll do her job good. She\u2019ll serve the people . . . and she\u2019ll also be loyal to God, and she\u2019s not going to violate her conscience.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tefforts to pose as a \u2018religious freedom\u2019 martyr are laughable. If she really believes she can\u2019t do her job, she ought to do the honorable thing and
\n\tresign.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"