A marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage
The job of Rowan County clerk is not one you take seeking celebrity. It mostly involves shuffling paper: maintaining voter registration rolls, overseeing elections, issuing license plates, filing reports on the goings-on in the small northeastern Kentucky county of roughly 23,000. The elections for the position are uneventful and remarkably civil — the local Morehead News published just one story about the most recent campaign, remarking on how unusual it was for the job to be contested.
It’s absurd that it even is an elective position; it should be a civil service job, filled on the basis of qualifications.
“My words can never express the appreciation,” she said of the constituents who voted for her, “but I promise to each and every one that I will be the very best working clerk that I can be and will be a good steward of their tax dollars and follow the statutes of this office to the letter.”
Whoops no she didn’t mean that! She totally takes it back lol!
Davis’s defiance of a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has put her in an unbidden spotlight and at odds with that Election Day promise. She faces official misconduct charges and a hearing to determine whether she is in contempt of court.
On account of how she’s refusing to do a part of her job. It’s her job, and she’s refusing to do it.
Since June, when the Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed, Davis has asked to be excused from issuing marriage licenses to anyone on the grounds that licensing a same-sex marriage would violate her religious beliefs.
Those aren’t really her religious beliefs, they’re just her ugly prejudices, dressed up as “religious beliefs.”
In doing so, the longtime public servant has evoked the anger of couples who say it’s their right to be married in their home county by the clerk whose salary comes from their tax dollars.
“I pay your salary,” David Moore insisted Tuesday, leaning over Davis’s desk after she refused to issue a license to him and his partner, David Ermold. “I pay you to discriminate against me right now, that’s what I’m paying for.”
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Davis isn’t the only clerk to reject the Supreme Court’s ruling, but she is certainly the most notorious. That’s in part because of a now viral video that Moore and Ermold filmed in July during their first attempt to obtain a marriage license in Rowan County.
But Davis is also the most outspoken of the holdout clerks — she has issued a statement explaining her stance on the issue and is being represented by the public interest law firm Liberty Counsel, which provides free legal assistance for “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life and the family,” according to its Web site. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the firm an “anti-LGBT hate group.”
Let’s check out that statement she made.
I have worked in the Rowan County Clerk’s office for 27 years as a Deputy Clerk and was honored to be elected as the Clerk in November 2014, and took office in January 2015. I love my job and the people of Rowan County. I have never lived any place other than Rowan County. Some people have said I should resign, but I have done my job well. This year we are on track to generate a surplus for the county of 1.5 million dollars.
In addition to my desire to serve the people of Rowan County, I owe my life to Jesus Christ who loves me and gave His life for me. Following the death of my godly mother-in-law over four years ago, I went to church to fulfill her dying wish. There I heard a message of grace and forgiveness and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I am not perfect. No one is. But I am forgiven and I love my Lord and must be obedient to Him and to the Word of God.
I never imagined a day like this would come, where I would be asked to violate a central teaching of Scripture and of Jesus Himself regarding marriage. To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or Hell decision.
“God’s definition of marriage”? What’s that exactly? Where did God write down a definition of marriage? Does it square with all those men married to multiple women? In the bible?
For me it is a decision of obedience. I have no animosity toward anyone and harbor no ill will. To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue. It is about marriage and God’s Word. It is a matter of religious liberty, which is protected under the First Amendment, the Kentucky Constitution, and in the Kentucky Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Our history is filled with accommodations for people’s religious freedom and conscience. I want to continue to perform my duties, but I also am requesting what our Founders envisioned – that conscience and religious freedom would be protected. That is all I am asking.
“All” she is asking is to be allowed to refuse to do a part of her job, because of an imaginary “definition of marriage” from god itself. That’s asking too much.
Who signed the licenses for Kim Davis’ 2nd, 3rd and 4th marriages? Are these marriages included in God’s own definition? How does she feel about benefiting from the work of previous clerks who ignored God’s definitions and just did their jobs?
So wasn’t she elected a year ago or so? Doesn’t that roughly fit the time frame for this SCOTUS ruling coming up? I suppose it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she pursued this office with the intention with opposing the nigh-inevitable ruling.
But that may just be stretching into the realm of fantasy.
I just read somewhere that SCOTUS rejected the case.
Yeah, she got a one sentence reply from them:
“The application for stay presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied.”
Well, those would just be the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Amendment to the Kim’stitution, amirite?
/S:t Snark
She’s also been married four times, and the punishment for divorce in Leviticus is, explicitly, death. And we are all familiar with how much these types of people just love to quote Leviticus.
Also make sure she doesn’t eat any shellfish and check to see if she’s wearing mixed fabrics.
Thing is, she probably swore an oath to “discharge the duties” of her office. Probably swore on a bible. Probably said “so help me dog” (or something similar).
Meaning, she violated one of the Big Ten (taking the Lord’s name in vain). I thought that was a no-no.
Not only is she in legal hot water, she’s theologically skating on thin ice.
Hot water on thin ice — not a pretty combination.
Following the death of my snarky, irreverent, and totally delightful mother-in-law, I never once set foot in church, in total accordance with her wishes, and I must admit, I have not felt the slightest pang of consciousness about it.
She is trying to lay her failure to do her job on her dead mother-in-law. This is just not acceptable. If she can’t do her job, then she should find a different job. (Even if she finds personal distaste in it; I’ve had to do some things in some of my jobs that violated my principles, and when I found I couldn’t do them, I left for another job.)
I wonder if she’s ever heard of the first rule of holes.
IIRC she was quoted somewhere as saying the she added “So help me God” to the end of here oath of office; which totally justifies her current actions. This, even though the State mandated oath did not include that terminal statement.
“It’s absurd that it even is an elective position; it should be a civil service job, filled on the basis of qualifications.”
Agreed, it’s also significant that the job description includes ‘maintaining voter registration rolls, overseeing elections’—both critical duties in a democracy.
Formatting did something wonky…try this again:
God’s definition of marriage. Let’s see what the bible has to say about it, shall we (Skeptic’s Annotated Bible is so handy!):
Exodus 21:10 ” If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. ”
So, taking multiple wives is okey dokey!
Deuteronomy 22:13 – “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate…. But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.”
This one’s icky. So this lady clearly wasn’t a ‘maid’ on her subsequent marriages….jus’ sayin’. If she really wanted to follow gawd’s law, she wouldn’t been nice and provided a quarry……
1 Corinthians 7:8 – “To the unmarried and to widows I say: it is good for them to stay as they are.”
So actually, the bible says it’s better to not get married.
Hrm, methinks a certain overzealous bigot in KY hasn’t actually read the bible.
“So help me God” does *not* mean, God, help me get excused from this if it’s something I don’t want to do.
Unless apparently you want it to…
We all have an opportunity to be included in history text books. I wouldn’t want to be the example of a hold out in support of bigotry.
Oops. That was supposed to be “a hold out in support of bigotry.” That’ll teach me to post and talk to my daughter at the same time.
Jesus is the ‘get out of jail free’ card for Davis and Co. She could have eaten babies for breakfast 365 days a year. But by pulling the Jeebus Card out of her back pocket TODAY, she is endowed with the moral high ground to lord her superiority over anyone else.
I’ve seen an actual bumper-sticker that said: Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.
Whoever put it on their car didn’t seem to think it was funny.