Bigot Clerk

From USA Today:

"Ky. clerk asks high court to intervene in marriage case"

 

A Kentucky county clerk asked the U.S. Supreme Court for permission Friday to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is seeking "asylum for her conscience," her lawyers with the Orlando-based law firm Liberty Counsel wrote in their emergency application to stay enforcement of a federal court ruling requiring the county to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Davis already has lost a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Covington, Ky., after Judge David Bunning ruled that her religious convictions do not excuse her from performing official duties and upholding her oath of office. She has refused to issue licenses to all couples since the June Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, and on Wednesday the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stay Bunning's injunction against Davis. Justice Elena Kagan, who joined the 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case, will hear Davis' request because she is assigned to Kentucky and three other states in the 6th Circuit. But law professor Sam Marcosson of the University of Louisville thinks that Davis' request will be denied, and Dan Canon, lawyer for the two gay and two straight couples who sued Davis when they were denied marriage licenses, previously said he didn't think she would be able to get a stay.  Davis' lawyer, Jonathan D. Christman, wrote that forcing Davis to issue licenses is akin to forcing a person who objects to war into the battlefield or forcing a person against capital punishment to carry out an execution. The firm considers this a first test of the rights of public officials across the USA since the same-sex marriage ruling. On Thursday, James Yates and William Smith Jr., a couple of nearly 10 years, left the Rowan County Courthouse frustrated and angry after staff refused them a marriage license for a third time in recent weeks. The deputy clerk on duty told them that an order from Bunning staying his ruling didn't expire until Monday. "It's just making us want to press more," Yates said. "She can't get away with this because it will open the door for so many other rights to be just thrown away."  Davis, an Apostolic Christian, has said she will not resign her $80,000-a-year job and never will issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even if the Supreme Court denies her request. Davis cannot be fired because she is an elected official. The state Legislature could impeach her, but that is unlikely because many state lawmakers share her beliefs.  The Republican president of the state Senate spoke at a rally last week in support of Davis. The couples like Yates and Smith that sued her could ask Bunning to hold Davis in contempt. That would trigger another court hearing and likely would include testimony from Davis herself. The judge then could order hefty fines or even put her in jail until she complies with the order. They don't like gays, and they don't want them to get married," Yates said. "And they will burn the earth and not let straight people in Rowan County get married either." Smith said Davis is blatantly breaking the law and hiding behind religion to discriminate — the last thing he expected in Rowan County, a county of about 24,000 residents halfway between Lexington, Ky., and Huntington, W.Va., which has always remained open to the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community. "We should be celebrating right now, enjoying our lives together and enjoying the fact that we could spend our lives together and have it recognized by our country," Smith said. "Now we are just kind of on nerves."  Yates and Smith said they will try again next week after the temporary stay expires. However, Yates said even if judges continue to rule in favor of the couples, Davis and her lawyers will find ways to stall. "They are ignoring this ruling," he said. "Why would they follow the next one?" A small group has protested Davis' policy outside the Rowan County Courthouse daily, and demonstrators say they are planning a large rally Saturday on the courthouse lawn.  Rachelle Bombe, one of the protesters, predicted that Davis "will not stop. She is the terminator." "A lot to people are being hurt," Bombe said. "There are so many wonderful couples that want to be married, and they can't get married. And some of them have waited an entire lifetime to get married, so it is very sad."

 

 

 ^ This is stupid and simply allowing open discrimination, not to mention knowingly disobeying a Federal law (and as we all know a Federal law supersedes a State one.) This county clerk is a bigot plain and simple. The US Supreme Court - the highest court in the whole country) already declared that all 50 states, DC, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands along with the Federal Government has to perform and recognize same-sex marriage. The only US territory where this ruling doesn't apply is in American Samoa. With that said, if you blatantly disobey a law (whether you agree with it or not) makes you guilty of breaking that law. Even if you don't do it blatantly  - -if you don't know the law - you still can't claim ignorance when you break the law. A government official (elected or not) has the responsibility to obey all the local, State and Federal laws within their jurisdiction. If they do not obey the law then they should face the consequences that everyone else would have to face. They can  not abuse their position to impose their own agenda on other people. If this clerk refused to marry a mixed-race couple (as so many in the South did in the 1960s even when the Federal Government said it was illegal to do so) then the whole country would be up in arms about it. But, unfortunately, most Americans haven't paid any attention to gays marrying since the Supreme Court decision even though there are many such bigoted officials around the country, like this one in KY, who openly defy and break the law. I really hope she gets impeached put in jail and replaced so that all the others breaking the law see what will happen to them is the continue. No one is forcing her to occupy her position of "power" and if she doesn't personally agree with same-sex marriage or equality then that's her own demon to deal with, but she should not be allowed to impose her own will on others in an official capacity - especially after the decision has already been made final. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/08/28/gay-couple-kentucky-clerk-denied-marriage-three-times/71310832/