No One's Ever Been Dedicated to Not Doing Their Job Quite Like County Clerk Kim Davis
In DepthKim Davis, the county clerk who’s been married four times but has steadfastly refused to allow same-sex couples marriage licenses because “that searing act of validation would forever echo in her conscience,” has once again been told to STFU and do the job she was elected to do. And, once again, she is refusing.
According to USA Today, Davis filed a petition with the Supreme Court several days ago, asking for them to stop forcing her to issue marriage licenses and violate her religious freedom. She also asked the Court to at least let her refuse licenses during the appeals process. The court has politely said, “Hell no.”
Davis’ petition, which is likely the first of at least several challenges to the Supreme Court’s June decision on same-sex marriage, comes after she tried but failed to get her perceived constitutional right to bigotry protected by a district court—a request quickly denied, as was her appeal. However, Christ appears to be still compelling Kim Davis to keep her conscience clean by way of shirking her job duties.
Of course, Kim Davis’ conscience should already feel unclean. She’s an Apostolic Christian, a denomination that believes in literal interpretation; thus, according to the Bible’s teaching, she might reasonably have been stoned to death years ago by her community because, as the Apostolic Theological Seminary points out, “God hates the separation of husband and wife.” God also forbids his followers to pass judgment on others, as well as to marry non-believers. There’s a lot of stuff that God forbids, actually, that Kim Davis seems happy to ignore.
Even though Davis’ emergency request to not be allowed to issue marriage licenses has been denied, Yahoo News reports that she is, remarkably, continuing to deny marriage licenses. Her husband says she’s received death threats, and has in turn vowed that if anyone shows up to his house to bother his wife they will meet their maker much sooner than expected.
Joe Davis […] says he’s not afraid, and he believes in the Second Amendment.
He said: “I’m an old redneck hillbilly, that’s all I’ve got to say. Don’t come knocking on my door.”
Davis’ husband thinks of her as somewhat of a Biblical hero:
Joe Davis compared his wife to the biblical figures Paul and Silas, sent to prison and rescued by God.
He pointed to the gay rights protesters gathered on the courthouse lawn and said: “They want us to accept their beliefs and their ways. But they won’t accept our beliefs and our ways.”
Of course, anyway, that’s not what’s happening. No one is saying that Davis has to believe in gay marriage; what the courts (and the people) are saying is that as a publicly elected official she has to follow the laws. If she can’t do that, the obvious move is to step down: really believing in this righteous discrimination should at least mean that she is willing to forgo her job security for it.
Instead, Kim Davis is standing firm, arguing that there are other places where a couple could get married in Kentucky; why can’t they stop bothering her? From Yahoo:
…Kim Davis emerged from her office Tuesday morning after some couples were denied the licenses. She asked David Moore and David Ermold, who’ve been rejected four times, to leave. They refused, surrounded by reporters and cameras.
Ermold said: “We’re not leaving until we have a license.”
Davis responded: “Then you’re going to have a long day.”
Davis’ supporters whooped from the back of the room: “Praise the Lord” and “stand your ground.”
Others shouted that Davis is a bigot and told her: “Do your job.”
Davis’ lawyers, Liberty Counsel, have put out a statement denouncing the decision to refuse her request for a reprieve on her job duties. They state that reasonable people would have accommodated Davis by any number of ways, including creating an entirely new “statewide, online” system for marriage licenses.
One more thing: It’s recently been revealed that Davis married a couple of which one member is transgender in February. What will Davis do about this union? And what will she do about the countless adulterers and people who have committed crimes that she has likely married during her tenure as the county clerk?
A call to the county clerk’s office was met only with a busy signal, although it’s unclear whether that’s because too many people are calling or because the office has taken their phone off the hook. We’ve reached out to Davis’ legal counsel, but have yet to hear a response.
Contact the author at [email protected].
Image via Getty