One Brave County Defies Law, Refuses Gay Couples Right to Marry
In the face of adversity, one courageous defender is holding strong: the Rowan County clerk’s office in Morehead, KY, which is bravely defying a federal judge’s order in its quest to ensure that not all people are treated as equals, no matter what the Supreme Court says.
Citing religious beliefs (as opposed to, say, deep-seated, bigoted hangups), County Clerk Kim Davis has declined to treat gay couples as equal to straight couples, refusing to issue gay couples marriage licenses despite the Supreme Court June ruling that declared same sex marriage legal nationwide.
Davis’s argument—which was soundly rejected by a federal judge Wednesday—is that “issuing a same-sex marriage license that contains her signature is the same as her approving the marriage.”
Eh, no says the judge, via the AP:
Judge Bunning rejected that argument in his ruling Wednesday, saying Davis has likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on the government establishing a religion by “openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expenses of others.”
“Davis remains free to practice her Apostolic Christian beliefs. She may continue to attend church twice a week, participate in Bible Study and minister to female inmates at the Rowan County Jail. She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do,” Bunning wrote. “However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk.”
Now her office reportedly won’t issue any licenses to any couples—straight or blasphemous—in some sort of cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face reasoning.
Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, has reportedly told Davis to resign if she won’t issue the licenses, but that apparently goes against her religious beliefs (or whatever) as well: as of Thursday she was still in her position, albeit on vacation. Can you blame her though? Trampling human rights must be exhausting.
