Now It's the Governor's Fault

The Kim Davis comedy just keeps getting stranger. In today's press release, Liberty Counsel blames Kentucky Governor Beshear for their client's incarceration.

 “From the outset of this case, Kim Davis has proposed numerous simple options to protect her sincerely-held religious beliefs. These less-restrictive solutions are readily available, and easily accomplished by the Governor and the state agency responsible for designing the revised marriage form at issue in this litigation. The Governor’s refusal to take elementary steps to protect religious liberties has now landed Kim Davis in jail. As a prisoner of her conscience, Davis continues to request a simple accommodation and exemption from the Governor.”

The Best Thing You'll Read About Kim Davis All Day

From Jonathan Turley:

Davis has said that “[t]o issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.” While clerks do “sign off” on certificates, that is not a discretionary function. Their signature confirms compliance with the dictates of the law, not personal moral dictates. They cannot deny certificates to those who are legally qualified to receive them.

Davis may have had a principled position in previously declining to issue these licenses while the courts considered the merits of the question. Similarly, clerks who believed that there was a legal basis to issue such licenses based on lower court decisions would claim a principled stand. However, that debate ended the minute the box holding the Obergefell opinions was opened in the Supreme Court clerk’s office on June 26. 

In Which Liberty Counsel Compares Kim Davis to Martin Luther King

Liberty Counsel has a new press release that compares Kim Davis to actual civil rights leaders, like Martin Luther King, Jr.

 Because, I guess, being jailed while peacefully demonstrating for the extension of civil rights to a minority is identical to being jailed for refusing to do your sworn duty mostly because you're a terrible theologian.

 Kim joins a long list of people who were imprisoned for their conscience. People who today we admire like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Jan Huss, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more. 

Tony Perkins Weighs In On Kim Davis

"I think he was trying to make an example of Kim Davis, and he may well do so," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, which lobbies against gay marriage. "Courage breeds courage, especially when it comes from unlikely places. She may be the example that sparks a firestorm of resistance across this country."

"A firestorm of resistance" summons images of hundreds of clerks going to jail for their sincerely held refusal to keep their oath of office and support the Constitution of the United States. Better build more prisons, I guess.

But in the meantime, this solitary example of a woman guided by attorneys from the activist Liberty Counsel group (none of whom are sharing a jail cell with their victim client) takes people's attention away from Tony's last Executive Director, wannabe adulterer and serial sister-molester, Josh Duggar.

So there's an upside.

Todd Starnes Needs To Slip Into Some Dry Panties

I truly believe Judge Bunning wanted to intimidate Christians and send a very clear message – that resistance to same-sex marriage will not be tolerated -- doing with the gavel what Bull Connor tried to do with dogs and fire hoses.

Of course it is, except the issue here is extending civil rights, there's no violence being committed against a minority, the action taken is to correct illegal behavior by a public official, and the Bull Connor figure here is Kim Davis, not the gay couples whose rights she denied.

Otherwise, spot on, Todd.

Can a Christian be a county clerk in the United States?

Short post here: The argument presented here is that being a Christian is incompatible with government policy and the implication is that Christian government officials must be afforded special powers non Christians are denied, for example, the power to substitute personal religious beliefs for official public policy. This injects religion into not only the function of government employees but the electoral process as well. Voters would rightly want to know which variety of candidate was seeking their vote.

The problem, of course, is that it's unconstitutional on its face.

Article VI. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. (emphasis added) 

SCOTUS Refuses Kim Davis Request. Sort Of Like What She Does to Gay Couples

Her pro bono legal help from the Liberty Counsel seemed optimistic earlier.

“Providing religious conviction accommodations is not antithetical for public employees,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “Throughout our history the courts have accommodated people’s deeply held religious beliefs,” Staver said.

 But as of 7:51 pm (EDT) that door was slammed shut. What's a judgmental Christian bigot to do? Why, "pray about it" overnight.  Maybe Dog will tell her that Mary Kay gig looks pretty good after all.

Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis Appeals to SCOTUS

The Kentucky clerk who seems to think issuing a marriage license leads blowjobs, cunnilingus and anal sex wants the Supreme Court to take her side. Represented by Liberty Counsel, her appeal contains the following pearl-clutching phrase,

“If Davis’s religious objection cannot be accommodated, then elected officials have no real religious freedom when they take public office,” 

My apologies to the clerk, but the whole point of elected government officials acting in accordance with the law is to assure secular behavior.  (http://bit.ly/1Eql7mO)