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Kim Davis Was Not The Only Kentucky County Clerk Who Refused To Issue Couples Marriage Licenses

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Casey Davis via MSNBC interview screen shot
Casey Davis via MSNBC interview screen shot

Kentucky was faced with another case of drama and failure to perform statutory duties and the federal courts. The Casey County Clerk announced that he would refuse to issue marriage licenses to couples who’s marriage he objects to.

The clerk, in a bit of irony, is named Casey Davis.

Davis insists that he has a duty to himself to violate state law but oddly he feels the Commonwealth should pay for an attorney to represent him.


 

Kentucky governor Steve Beshear in July granted an audience with Mr. Davis and thereafter ordered him to issue licenses to all couples regardless of their gender or resign. Defiantly, the county clerk stated, “I’m going to trust the Lord with all my heart, my position remains.”

Governor Beshear issued the following statement:

“This morning, I advised Mr. Davis that I respect his right to his own personal beliefs regarding same-sex marriages,” the Governor’s statement reads. “However, when he was elected, he took a constitutional oath to uphold the United States Constitution. According to the United States Supreme Court, the Constitution now requires that governmental officials in Kentucky and elsewhere must recognize same-sex marriages as valid and allow them to take place. One of Mr. Davis’ duties as county court clerk is to issue marriage licenses, and the Supreme Court now says that the United States Constitution requires those marriage licenses to be issued regardless of gender. Mr. Davis’ own county attorney has advised him that his oath requires him to do so.”

Here is a video of Mr. Davis speaking before supporters:

By Darren Smith

Source:

The New Civil Rights Movement
MSNBC Photo Credit

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.

306 thoughts on “Kim Davis Was Not The Only Kentucky County Clerk Who Refused To Issue Couples Marriage Licenses”

  2. IF/THEN Test:
    If America is jailing people because of their Christian faith…
    … Then produce the list of Christians being innocently jailed based on their faith alone.

    Kim Davis is in contempt of a Judge. That’s not innocent in any form of the word innocent AND to argue such is only a mockery of your own intelligence. It was once said…

    “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
    ~ Some old Republican.

  3. Oh, stevegroen, let me also remind you that Brown v. Board of Education was a unanimous decision. To compare that good ruling with Obergefell on the grounds of the importance of federalism is not wise.

  5. The left in the US who vilify Kim Davis are falling all over their tongues as the Pope arrives. On gay marriage and abortion, the Pope and Davis have the same views. Hmmm.

  6. She’s NOT being sent to jail for her religious convictions David. Do you honestly think that rational people will buy what you’re selling here? She was sent to jail for contempt of court. She imposed HER religious beliefs on others. Why would she make her belief system become a “public” thing? Her beliefs are between her and God.

    1. Annie wrote: “She’s NOT being sent to jail for her religious convictions David. … She was sent to jail for contempt of court.”

      The federal court ordered Kim Davis to issue same sex marriage licenses which would violate her religious convictions. She explained to the court her religious conviction and asked for an accommodation of removing her name from the marriage licenses. The court declined her request and insisted she violate her religious conviction. For her, it was basically obey the federal courts or obey God. So the Judge issued a contempt order to place her in jail until she had a change of heart. If you can’t see how the jailing was in response to her being true to her religious convictions, then you must not know what a religious conviction is. The federal court was attempting to coerce her to violate her sincere religious conviction… to violate her faith. It is no different than asking her to denounce her God.

      Annie wrote: “She imposed HER religious beliefs on others.”

      That is your spin on it. She was actually trying to remain true to her own religious convictions. She believed that her God did not want her authorizing gay marriages, and she believed that her name on the marriage license was giving her imprimatur to gay marriage.

      Annie wrote: ” Why would she make her belief system become a “public” thing? Her beliefs are between her and God.”

      The Supreme Court and the federal courts made her belief system a public thing. All the laws about marriage were passed with a completely different definition of marriage. So in effect, the homosexuals hijacked hundreds of years of jurisprudence. You can’t do that without expecting a lot of problems. California just voted to remove the words husband and wife from their laws about marriage, because they are deemed to be offensive words now. It takes time to change all the laws to accommodate this new warped and unnatural definition of marriage.

      Think about it like the story about Daniel and the den of lions. Before the change in the law, Daniel prayed regularly. The people behind changing the law knew this and saw it as opportunity to persecute Daniel and hurt him. So they changed the law, and what had always been a relatively private behavior for Daniel became public when he was charged with violating the law. In the same way, we now have homosexual activists who have maneuvered the federal courts to adopt a philosophy contrary to the major religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Now the sincere believers in these religions will be forced between embracing their religious convictions or putting government above their God. The homosexual activists are loving this because they now have governmental leverage to use against the religious teachings that they believe have been against their behavior and activities for thousands of years. They now revel in the persecution of people like Kim Davis the same way that Daniel’s oppressors were titillated with his suffering for his religious convictions.

  9. David,

    You’re simply wrong; absolutely, 100% wrong. Your understanding of the law in this matter is deeply flawed, and that’s probably because your view of morality is severely twisted. As a result, your logic is nonsensical.

    Kim Davis is a hateful, attention-starved bigot, and will go down as a rather pathetic figure in history. That you expend so much time and energy on defending her and her position does not reflect well on you. I don’t understand why you are so concerned with what others do in their private lives. Gay marriage doesn’t affect my marriage one iota, doesn’t diminish it, doesn’t enhance it, and it should have no impact on your’s. Rather than blame society for the hate and anger you and Davis seem to share, it’s time to look in the mirror and ask why.

    Your attitude is unAmerican. Society is changing and for the better in my opinion. You may not believe in evolution, but this is how we, as a nation evolve.

    1. T. Hall wrote: “I don’t understand why you are so concerned with what others do in their private lives.”

      Actually, I thought living with the Lawrence v. Texas decision could work out fine. It seemed reasonable to let people live however they wanted to in private. However, after the Obergefell decision and the obvious social hatred being expressed toward Kim Davis and others like her, my views about homosexuality are changing. I now think that homosexual behavior should be criminalized again, like it was 15 years ago.

      But that is really another topic. We are not talking about private homosexual relations when we are talking about gay marriage. Marriage is a public institution, not a private one.

      T. Hall wrote: “Gay marriage doesn’t affect my marriage one iota, doesn’t diminish it, doesn’t enhance it, and it should have no impact on your’s.”

      Of course it doesn’t affect my marriage. I discussed this in the past already, and it was discussed in the oral arguments in the Obergefell case. Gay marriage changes the meaning of marriage. The concern is not with my marriage, but with the perception of marriage by future generations. It forces the States to define marriage at best based upon love and mutual attraction, and at worst based upon lust and the desire to sanction hedonistic practices. The meaning of marriage as an institution for creating children and families is completely removed from the meaning of marriage now. So while 40% of children are now being born out of wedlock, expect that number to grow even more. This is not good for a civilized society. We are witnessing the destruction of the very foundations of our civil society.

      T. Hall wrote: “Rather than blame society for the hate and anger you and Davis seem to share, it’s time to look in the mirror and ask why.”

      Kim Davis and I do not share hatred and anger. That exists only in your imagination.

      Did you watch the video of the interview that Max shared? How can you not see the suffering and oppression being forced upon Kim Davis by the federal government? Nobody should ever suffer this way for their religious convictions. The framers of our Constitution worked hard to create religious freedom so that exactly these kinds of things would never happen. Nobody should ever be sent to jail because of their religious convictions. The lack of tolerance is astounding in this day and age where that is mostly all we talk about. We tolerate a man putting his penis into another man’s rectum and calling that marriage, but we will not tolerate a woman who does not want her personal name authorizing something she believes her God hates. Something is very wrong with this picture.

  11. davidm
    Please cite the Government documents MLK Jr. altered.

    Then you have a comparison. Until then, hog wash.

  12. davidm
    When immoral is meted out by your pile of buybull… I’ll gladly buy you a lobster dinner just so you can explain to me why I’m the sinner according to it… O.K.? Until then, your “opinions” about what is and isn’t moral don’t count as case law.

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