Kim Davis has been released from jail with the admonition that she not interfere with her clerks’ issuing of marriage licenses, including licenses to same-sex couples. However, her lawyers are saying she’s going to block the issuing of licenses as before. So we may not be done with her yet.
I agree with Steve M that there probably are forces within the Republican Party that want Ms. Davis and her homophobic dog whistles to go away. A Rasmussen poll shows that two-thirds of the public think Davis should get over it and issue the licenses. Fox News is not supporting her, it seems. She’s sucking up attention that they’d probably like to re-direct to Hillary Clinton’s emails, and gay-baiting is no longer a winner for Republicans in general elections.
Some conservative commenters are sympathetic to her, of course, but the talking point that developed over the weekend is that all this Sturm und Drang would go away if the state of Kentucky would change their marriage license regulations so that the licenses would not have to be issued in Davis’s name (apparently the clerks have been issuing licenses without Davis’s name on them, and there is some question about whether that is legal). And yes, that would be a solution, but a federal judge can’t do that, and neither can Davis, unilaterally. So until the Kentucky legislature gets off its ass and offers that remedy, I don’t see that as an out to our current impasse.
“So until the Kentucky legislature gets off its ass and offers that remedy”
Why should they? If we start down this road where does it end? I think my analogy of a statewide secretary of state (in charge of the BMV) is relevent. So he or she decides not to issue drivers licenses to women, cause it’s against the Koran etc………. is that gonna fly, I don’t think so. These people chose to serve the public, they are free to be bigots at home or in church but as long as they are working in the public sphere they have to abide by the LAW! You don’t even have to be an elected or public official, I do electrical engineering mostly new construction, I wonder if the courts would give me remedy if I refused to do the electrical protection on a hospital that may provide an abortion, I’d get fired and laughed out of court. Ms. (4-times) Martyr deserves no better.
How does state law currently work if a couple comes for a marriage license when the county clerk is in the hospital or otherwise not able to sign off on a license? Do they have to wait until said clerk is out of the hospital and back to work? Ditto with being on vacation or what have you. This must happen from time to time.
@Ed – deputies issue the licenses in the name of the county clerk without her actually having to physically sign them. Ms. Davis objects to her name appearing on any gay licenses, so her clerks have been (as I understand it) leaving that line blank.
This WaPo article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/04/when-does-your-religion-legally-excuse-you-from-doing-part-of-your-job/) suggests that Kentucky’s RFRA would allow the licenses to be legal without the legislature passing anything, but if I were marrying in Rowan County, I’d want a state court’s opinion before I relied on a marriage license with a blank authorization.
Of course, if I were gay and living in Rowan County, I’d clearly be such a masochist that these legal fights would likely seem fun to me.
Pardon the language, but she really is a stupid “rhymes with witch”. If she won’t do her job, she should resign (or live out her term behind bars). The 1st and 14th amendments are NOT new– the first goes back to the Founding Fathers– and they are there to protect us from self-appointed Imams like Davis. And I still think any graft she gets from bigoted followers should be considered accepting bribery.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression? Meaning in this case that Kim has lost her momentum and come next year when the Kentucky legislature reconvenes, her plight is going to be yawn city. From the moment her deputies issued the first licenses while she was sitting in jail she lost all her leverage to exploit the situation in her favor.
Now she will be what in Christian parlance would be called a voice calling out “from” the wilderness. But she’s not going to enjoy the same fanfare that this current round of oppressed Christian circus atmosphere has provided. Yeah, she’s got her Masada crowd, but that’s not going to be enough to carry her to victory.
Maybe wishful thinking on my part, but I think she’s painted herself into a corner with the help of a stupid legal team that has been reduced to a final act of appealing to the judge who jailed her to let her out of jail. The judge never had any intentions of jailing her to break her will. He just wanted to achieve his objective of getting those licenses issued. Kim is inconsequential to him. And now if she starts acting out before she can find a legislative remedy to get her off the hook, the issue will be slightly different. It will be her interfering with her deputies oath to the Judge to do the job they were hired to do.
Well, Kim…Jesus said to count the costs, and putting your hands to the plow don’t look back.
Oh, did you see the outfit that Kim’s hubby was wearing at the hoosegow when she got sprung? He was dressed like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. If I only had a brain?
If she were a Quaker refusing to grant licenses for guns, her religion would be of no consequence and we would be hearing arguments for the opposite. Just depends on whose ox is gored. Typical Rep. hypocrisy.
Her job is probably pretty boring, and this is the first exciting thing that’s come along since her marriage – whichever one of the 4 was the most exciting.
She’s in the news, she’s making a stand for Jesus – or so she thinks. And wallowing in the attention of “Christian” GOP Presidential sociopaths.
If I were in charge of the county, I’d makes sure she stood for impeachment. And if she were impeached, I’d go to the state and ask to eliminate her $80,000 a year job (a WHOPPING sum for that part of KY), nominate a head clerk, and make that job by appointment, and not election.
While I usually favor elections, in small counties like this, one family can, like she and her mother, hold a position for decades, if not a half-century or more.
Swami makes a very good point that I had not thought of. I was so focused on her dramatic performance at her release. Raising her arms and looking upward towards her “heaven” while smiling and being comforted by Huckabee. We shall see what she does as she returns to work. I suspect she is feeling justified and she will go back to her defiance of the law. I also suspect she is not as strong as she thinks she is. Or maybe her supporters will tire of her. What would we humans do without the drama we create?
Some people are comparing Kim Davis to Rosa Parks. An accurate analogy would be she is Rosa’s bus driver.
“If she were a Quaker refusing to grant licenses for guns”
Right, it’s just too bad we humans don’t have the political influence of those pistols and rifles!
Huckabee certainly showed his superior skill at being an opportunistic panderer. He hijacked the circus spotlight and left Cruz standing at the back of the crowd all bewildered. Just like two little puppies fighting for a teat Huckabee got all the politically life sustaining milk.
The Kentucky legislature is not in session, and the governor doesn’t want to call a special session because of the cost. So just from a practical standpoint they can’t get off their asses.
Hey, she’s famous now, with a future career path that should carry her almost as far as every other republican woman.
that should carry her almost as far as every other republican woman
Alas, for once if Faux Noise were to put a “(D)” behind a wrongdoer’s name onscreen, with Kim Davis they’d be correct. Well, technically.
Although I can envision a party switch in her future. Buh-bye now.
Huckabee is such a butthead. He’s crying out on how he’s so willing to take Kim Davis’s place by doing a stint in jail and acting as some sort of a whipping boy on her behalf, but if the American justice system which he has such disdain for hadn’t progressed past the days when religious orders held sway over our justice system as in colonial America then Huckabee might be volunteering for a seat in a dunking stool. I wonder how eager old Huck would be to make himself available if corporeal punishment was the means of coercion to insure compliance with the court’s order.
You’ve got to forgive me..I have an overwhelming urge to vent and express an emotion that I don’t even know how to express. I look at Huckabee and I get a sense of repulsion that borders on horror. To see such a shameless display of willful ignorance slobbering all over the nation stage just gets to me. His deceptive ramblings about Judicial tyranny is so inconsistent with the truths he espouses to hold dear — it makes my head spin.
The only way I can reconcile the nonsense that drips from his lips is that either he’s a buffoon or I’m a complete dolt. There’s no middle ground. I find myself frustrated in witnessing Huckabee’s particular brand of bullshit and I can’t be satisfied in just knowing what I seeing. I’ve got to verbally spit to relieve the disgust that consumes me when Huckabee is given place in my mind.
OK…I got off, somewhat. Thanks for the therapy!
My favorite thing about this case is that some of her supporters are arguing that the clerks who are following the law should be fired for doing so. Only not doing your job, apparently, warrants continued employment.
“The only way I can reconcile the nonsense that drips from his lips is that either he’s a buffoon or I’m a complete dolt. There’s no middle ground.”
I don’t think Huckabee is either a bufoon or dolt, he is at his core a televangelist, a grifter, and a media whore. He made that clear yesterday with that stunt he pulled with Ms (4-times) Martyr, though he’s a little out of practice as it was awkward and embarrassing to say the least. He is running for president to sell his books and increase his speaking fees, maybe get another nonsense show that know one will watch on FAUX? I understand your disgust I feel it too, though I’m confident that he stands zero chance of becoming president so his boastfulness and exploitation will soon run their course, after the New Hampshire primary he will fade into the background once again for another four years.
“I look at Huckabee and I get a sense of repulsion that borders on horror.”
I feel your pain, brother.
Huckabee is the embodiment of the patriarchy, so we can only try to imagine the revulsion and dread that he summons up for women, especially women trying to make a decent life for themselves despite obstacles in their way. Huckabee may seem like a dim bulb, but he has a bag of time tested tricks and he is willing to use any of them without worrying about who might get hurt, because so far, it’s never been him.
The most horrifying aspect is watching him work a crowd, herding them into his con game. It reminds me of that old Fritz Lang movie, “M.” The murderer has a balloon which he offers to a little girl. She comes to take the balloon, and the camera pans away. We see the balloon loose and floating upward.
This lady is like a fart in a submarine – unpopular but it’s not gonna sink the boat.
Like the psychopathic moron who murdered a bunch of black churchgoers earlier this year, they both hoped or expected that they would spark a race war or religious crusade to reverse the tide of racial acceptance (i can’t use the word equality) and reverse the tide of sexual acceptance. Their opinions, which were once mainstream, have become minority views.
They represent an increasingly frustrated white subculture determined to bring back the intolerance which they would never be the victims of. It’s the tragic, primal howl if a species which was once dominant and now fears its own extinction.