This is unexpected — I thought fines were forthcoming, but Kim Davis is apparently also going to jail.
Federal District Judge David Bunning held Kim Davis, the county clerk who has become a national symbol of anti-gay animus for her resistance to marriage equality, in contempt of court on Thursday. According to Dan Griffin, a reporter for local news station WSAZ, she was led out by U.S. Marshals. The judge reportedly said that financial sanctions were not enough to ensure her compliance with the law.
Also, while she’s absent from office, other county officials have the power to issue marriage licenses. So her obstruction is at an end.
Apparently, Kim Davis’s coworkers are also displeased with her. She was basically alone in her campaign to stop issuing marriage licenses.
Facebook link
I’ll bet a claim of martyrdom will start in:: 3… 2… 1..
(since she’s been claiming persecution all along…)
The only bad thing about this is that it will give fuel to ALL of the Christian martyr types who have been saying they’re about to be sent to jail because of their beliefs. I’m sure none of them will be able to distinguish between her beliefs and her actions, which are what actually got her sent to jail. That’s probably to subtle a distinction.
I didn’t know Christians were supposed to have a right to take rights away from gay people:
I’m actually not at all surprised by this. I don’t have any sort of legal background, but I feel like I would have done the exact same thing if I were the judge.
What I find interesting is that she’s being held until she complies with the order. I can’t imagine that happening any time soon (though I’m glad that other county officials can issue licences in the meantime). I have a feeling that she’ll just sit in jail until she gets impeached.
You can defy a lot of people in the world without suffering any consequences.
Judges aren’t one of them.
Her name will still be on the issued paperwork for gay couples by her deputies. This was what she was trying to avoid from happening….and it will be happening, as it should. Unless she got new forms without her name prior to today.
re Saad@4:
agreed. I too would like to inform them that we do not attack them for what they believe, only what they DO (or refuse to do). We totally allow Christians to believe their faith, BUT
when one takes a job, one is agreeing to do everything the job entails, regardless of one’s beliefs. If those job requirements are so offensive, one should refuse the job itself. One cannot just pick and choose which items to perform.
reiterating: “Freedom to Believe” is not being denied. Actions are constrained by law.
. I read that somewhere some may be familiar with…
She really should’ve just resigned in protest. Thereby, she gets to make her bigoted point without harming the people she’s supposed to serve and without breaking the law. But I guess that wasn’t grand enough for her. Good to see the way cleared, though.
It has started. Christians being jailed for their faith. Next step, beheading. Or so I am reliably told. Satan is in control!
And God is too weak to do anything about it, I see.
@10 Susannah
Well, the U. S. Marshals do use iron chariots, I believe. Most of them are even horseless! How is God supposed to provide aid against that sort of power?
I think jail is fine for her. It’s pretty standard procedure for contempt, and the argument that this fuels rightwing narratives about persecution is a non-starter, IMO. Anything would feed the rightwing BS about her being the persecuted one, so fines would do that too (even criticism has done so). Plus, only if any funds donated to help her pay were confiscated, forever, so she had to pay out of her own pocket and never be reimbursed would fines work at all. And I doubt that would be possible.
I liked this from the NYT story:
Or in her case, one woman and four men. Hypocrite. Charles Pierce also made the case yesterday that her Bible says she’s going to hell because, contrary to clear Biblical passages, she’s breaking the oath she swore on taking up her job.
Resigning in protest was never in the cards, for at least two reasons:
1. The whole thing would then be soon forgotten, instead of making the news for weeks or months.
2. It would be the principled thing to do.
Good afternoon PZ,
Driving home this afternoon I heard the most recent news and this thought occurred to me.
How might Davis have reacted when she applied for her 2nd, 3rd or 4th marriage license only to be turned away because the religious beliefs of the registrar did not recognize a state’s right to grant a divorce and so would have seen Davis as an adulteress to be stoned?
Just an interesting thought.
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write
Not being an American, I’m asking if I got this right: Davis will be jailed until she signs gay marriage licenses or resigns or her term as county clerk runs out?
On the other hand, here’s the latest bigoted bozo, Tennessee judge denies straight couple divorce, citing gay marriage ruling:
As some of the commenters point out, “this sounds like serious judicial misconduct to me. Instead of ruling on the merits of this case, he’s refusing these poor people’s divorce because he doesn’t like other completely unrelated marriages! That’s not only nonsensical, but a malicious abuse of his power.” And “[t]he Supreme Court didn’t rule on the definition of marriage, only that all couples who wish to marry have the same right to it as any other couple. […] On the other hand, we may soon see a ruling on whether a county official is being a complete and utter berk.”
If I understand it correctly, she is not jailed for not issuing marriage licenses but for contempt of court. Which I think is well justified.
BTW, in my “one woman and for men” post, I didn’t get that right. It’s “one woman and three men, one of them twice, with cheating and pregnancy by a man who was not her husband”. I found that info on another blog:
“Regarding Davis’ four marriages, her fourth “husband” is actually her second husband who she remarried. The second adopted the the twins she got pregnant with while cheating on the first with the third. Got it?”
Pretty biblical really, in the sense of the occurrences described in the Bible. Not so biblical in the sense of following Bible teachings.
Odd and unintended autocorrect or typo in my above, turning my intended “four men” into “for men”.
@anthrosciguy – Well who would have thought. Not only she’s a bigot, she’s a hypocrite too.
This is a ridiculous waste of everybody’s time and money. Gov. Beshear should just fire her, period. Instead, he is hiding under the judge’s robes like a sniveling coward.
re 4 marriages:
I’ve read that she answered the charge of “hypocrisy” with the assertion that “those previous marriages were before her mother’s death, that called her to become a ‘born-again’ christian”, and she says she recognizes that she was a sinner, but born again all sins are forgiven.
Interesting how that “forgiveness card” works…
re 21:
agreed,
I, too, have to be continually reminded that being an elected official, Davis is immune from being “fired” and can only be impeached.
She not just a “governor appointee”, who could be dismissed at whim.
More bigots, Transsexual people cannot be godparents, says Vatican:
What the feck is complicated here? A person agrees to be a godparent. End. Whether it’s for a meaningless ritual (baptism), and/or just an expression of interest in the child’s raising, End. Leave it to child rapist followers (“the faithful”) to turn a simple matter into a epic episode of hate.
@Ice Swimmer
I’m not sure if the judge said it explicitly, I believe that’s basically right.
Martyr?
In this little morality play she’s thinking she’s Rosa Parks when in fact she’s George Wallace.
Jailed?
What is the the world coming to?
Isn’t she supposed to be stoned for adultery after all those divorces? And, yanno, the actual adultery.
This is probably what she wanted all along.
Step 1 – Persecution
Step 2 – Martyrdom
Step 3 – Book deal and talk show circuit (mostly AM talk radio, one would assume)
I’m not sure how there’s legal ground to say she can be forced to issue the licenses, when it’s already legal precedent that pharmacists can refuse to dispense prescriptions based on “personal beliefs”.
(hattip to anthrosciguy @# 18)
Additional websearching on this finds corroborating statements that Ed Davis is indeed both her second and fourth husband. I am reminded of a biblical passage that no-one else seems to have brought to mind:
Note bolded section. Yes, Kim and Ed Davis are indeed committing an abomination before Yahweh, just like men who lie with mankind as with womenkind (Leviticus 18:22), in addition to committing adultery according to Jesus (Matthew 5:32)
@15 Ice Swimmer said:
(full disclosure: IANAL). Not quite. A judge ordering someone jailed for contempt is a coercive measure: it is meant to compel compliance with a judge’s order. My understanding is people who are jailed for contempt of court are kept in jail until: 1) they change their minds regarding disobedience to the judge’s order, 2) the judge no longer believes that keeping the person in jail has a chance of influencing their behaviour, or 3) the point becomes moot some other way. So: she can let herself out any time she wants, or the judge can let her out when s/he concludes keeping her there has little chance of compelling compliance, or the judge can let her out if she loses her position through impeachment, resignation, or loss of election.
Usually for state or federal elective offices, you swear to uphold the constitution…..SCOTUS said the license must be issued. Not doing so is not upholding the constitution, it is putting yourself and your beliefs above the constitution. Also, the deputies weren’t permitted to issue licenses either.
Whereas, IIRC, with pharmacists, there must be another present who will fill the prescription in lieu of the conscientious objector.
@27: Ah, but your forgot the All Is Forgiven trump card. According to her lawyers, all that Bad Stuff she did happened before she got Saved, so it doesn’t matter anymore. As far as her Big Buddy’s concerned, she is washed clean and is cleared to cast the first stone. Yahtzee!
the principled stand to take so as to not commit a sin by going against her god’s commandments would be to resign her position and to do so in a very public way for maximum effect. That is not what she chose to do how ever. What she did was to try and control what other people do there by indicating that it is not primarily about what she herself believes she should do but what she finds “sinful” in other peoples behavior and doing so in a very authoritarian way.
bah!
uncle frogy
Can’t the court get her fired? I mean, she’s working for a government job, so don’t they have the authority to do that? Or, am I mistaken? I’m just saying that one would think being fired would be enough to prevent her from doing this, but if there’s some wrinkle that prevented them from taking that action, that’d be good to know too.
Elected officials can’t be fired.
She is an elected county official, which is under state jurisdiction. The Kentucky legislature can (and hopefully likely will), impeach her, removing her from office for not upholding the constitution, and doing her constitutional duty. But Kentucky is in the Bible Belt of defending those take their faith overly seriously, and foists it upon others.
And the Kentucky legislature is in recess until January.
Could be a long lonely holiday season in jail for her if she is as pig headed as she seems.
Any fines probably would have been paid by anti gay groups from all over the country. So fines alone would not have been enough.
As an secular humanist, it is MY deeply held conviction that someone who broke a sworn oath once cannot be trusted in any facility that requires a second.
Can I prevent the county from electing her?
Her obstruction is not quite at an end. Her orders to the deputy clerks (one of which is her son) are still in effect. The other clerks are willing, but they are unsure if they can do so because her signature still seems to be specifically required. With her in jail and her orders to not process any marriage licenses still in force, they are in a bit of a bind.
While the other clerks are willing, her son has refused. Licenses will start being issued tomorrow (though Davis, Mr. will not be doing so), but the question of the legality of these licenses was left with lawyers saying, “couples would have to judge that risk on their own.”
Tread carefully, folks.
On a side note, Davis swore an oath before god to faithfully execute the law and uphold the Constitution. So now she’s trying to demonstrate her obedience to god by disobeying her oath to god?
This is a followup to rrhain’s comment #41.
Five out of the six Rowan County clerks have now agreed to issue marriage licenses to everyone. Only Kim Davis’s son has refused.
Some attorneys have raised the possibility that no marriage licenses issues during the absence of Kim Davis would be valid. What a can of worms.
Presidential candidate and current Senator, Ted Cruz, said some stupid stuff:
Facts rejected by Cruz:
– Davis was punished for not doing her job as a public servant and for contempt of court. She was not arrested for “living according to her faith.”
– Court decisions are not “lawless”
– Davis is free to observe her religious faith, she just can’t do it on the taxpayer’s dime and time. She can’t do it when her job description and her faith are in disagreement.
There are always two or three people who are valid signatures on legal documents like marriage licenses. They do have to take into account extended illnesses, vacations, and simply being tied up with other business (like county meetings, etc.), so this shouldn’t be a problem. I was not department head, but could sign for them when they were out, for various documents. For example, a marriage license isn’t a budget item, so my signature would be sufficient.
Re valid signature: In my field, if the signatory isn’t available, the valid signature was also kicked upwards. My boss’ boss could also sign. If deputies can’t sign, then the County Supervisor should be able to supply the legal signature in the absence of the County Clerk…Davis is only a speed bump, not a solid wall. She loses yet again.
This is the only solution that makes sense. Fines would be pointless since someone would set up a GoFundMe and have it covered in two minutes. For all of fundamentalist’s apparent willingness to act as martyrs, this is usually a hollow threat… maybe they are willing to endure a slap on the wrist fine or (better yet) have someone else (e.g. the taxpayer) actually pay the bill for their ‘persecution’. But since no GoFundMe will cover being boxed up with steel bars for a view, hopefully this will dissuade anyone hoping to follow in her footsteps. She got what she deserved.
I’m certainly hoping that the legal issues can be handled by simply treating Ms. Davis as “unavailable” and thus doing whatever would be done were she on vacation, out sick, etc. But, she has left a standing policy order and she’s not really “unavailable” but in contempt of court. Because I am not a lawyer, I’m not sure what that means and it seems at least one other lawyer finds the question interesting as this probably was never anticipated and thus the formal rules have never been examined. After all, suppose she had gone on vacation. Would her substitute be allowed to alter any standing policies she had enacted in her absence? If not, how is this any different? But on the flip side, being found in contempt of court because the policy violated the law would seemingly require someone up the chain (such as the AG) to say, “No, that policy cannot stand.” I think the AG actually did do this, if I recall correctly.
The advice to “judge that risk on their own” is good. I would hope that someone in authority within the chain of command would make a positive statement that yes, they are providing services; yes, they are legitimate; yes, they are following the AG’s demand that clerks fall in line with the SCOTUS decision. It would make a lot of people more secure about the situation.
“In sentencing litigants to jail time for civil contempt, a judge needs to find that the litigant holds the keys to his own jail cell – that is, that he or she has the means to comply with the order at the time the sentence is imposed. I once sentenced an attorney who represented himself in a divorce case to jail for steadily refusing to file a financial statement. He held the jail cell keys – “just file the financial statement and you are out of jail!”
http://petersbench.com/petersbench11133_024.htm
@#20:
“Well who would have thought. Not only she’s a bigot, she’s a hypocrite too.” As well as a convicted criminal and an adulteress.
It seems to me the “persecution” so aggrieved by so many of these mental minuses is actually a perverse sort of masochism; their “beliefs” mean more or only have value when they are not allowed to force said beliefs upon others.
Maybe I have missed the reason posted somewhere, but why wasn’t she fired and replaced with someone who would do the job?
The grey area seems to be that the deputies are only authorized in so far as Davis has authorized them to issue marriage licenses. If she has revoked their authority, then they don’t have that power. Kentucky law does provide that in the absence of a county clerk, that her fellow elected officer, the county judge/executive can issue marriage licenses and presumably can authorize the deputies to do so. This would be Walter Doc Blevins in Rowan County.
“KRS 402.240 provides that in the absence of the county clerk, or during a vacancy in the office, the county judge/executive may issue the license and, in so doing, he shall perform the duties and incur all the responsibilities of the clerk. The county judge/executive shall return a memorandum to that effect to the clerk and the memorandum shall be recorded as if the license had been issued by the clerk. ”
I must admit that Kentucky has some unusual laws. The only couples that absolutely cannot get married in Kentucky though legally eligible to wed would be one where one partner is a female under 18 and not a widow and resident in Rowan County (or one of the other two counties dragging their feet). Kentucky law requires such couples to get the license in the county of residence of the under 18 year old female.
She’s an elected county official. She can only be impeached (tried and convicted) by the Kentucky legislature.
nevermind
On the issue of the validity of licenses while Davis is in stony lonesome….
First off, her signature on the forms is pre-printed. She doesn’t actually sign them herself. This is, by the way part of her claim that she can’t just let the deputies handle the paperwork. Her name still appears on the forms as County Clerk and she thinks that she’ll get gay cooties from that. Go figure.
Second, it came out a few weeks ago that there is a provision in Kentucky law that, if a County Clerk is “absent” (where what constitutes “absent” isn’t defined in the law), another official, the “Judge Executive” (if memory serves) has the authority covering the clerks normal duties. That is, the Judge Executive can issue marriage licenses, or–more accurately–tell the deputy clerks to do with them what they normally would.
So the real question becomes: While Davis is in jail for contempt, is she absent from her office?
“The conclusion reached by this Court is that Tennesseans have been deemed by the US Supreme Court to be incompetent to define and address such keystone/central institutions such as marriage, and, thereby, at minimum, contested divorces,”
Some Tennesseans, yes. You shouldn’t need big judges to help you brain.
“The conclusion reached by this Court is that Tennesseans have been deemed by the US Supreme Court to be incompetent to define and address such keystone/central institutions such as marriage, and, thereby, at minimum, contested divorces,”
I’m not up on my woo-woo, but what’s a “bill of divorcement”? Was divorce a thing in deuteronomy? Did anyone neglect to tell the catholics that?
Oops – cut&pasto there. I meant to clip the bit from Deuteronomy:
1) When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
My mistake, I didn’t realize “county clerk” was an electable position. I pictured someone sitting behind a counter all day just helping people fill out paperwork.
Much as I believe in democracy I’m at a loss to understand why this would be an elected and not a meritorious post. There seems (to someone from the UK) to be a lot of elections in the US that seem to serve to over exaggerate a minor democratic advantage – a 50.01% republican support results in a 100% republican administration with the loss of vast amounts of experience.
@56/57
Yes Marcus, divorce was a thing back then. However, the topic comes up again in the New Testament when Jesus is asked a question about divorce. He basically throws that out the window and says what Moses told them was wrong, and that “what God hath joined together let no man split asunder”. So yes, Catholics know the Jews used to get divorces, but they believe that Jesus nixed all that.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/09/03/3698419/breaking-kim-davis-held-in-contempt-of-court-now-in-us-marshals-custody/
UPDATE SEP 3, 2015 3:57 PM
Attorneys representing the same-sex couples in this case reportedly offered a deal, that Judge Bunning agreed to, which would allow Davis to leave jail if she permitted several of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. According to multiple sources on Twitter, however, Davis has refused this deal and elected to remain in jail.
Oh good grief!
http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2015/09/03/this-is-getting-to-be-even-more-of-a-circus/
So by her logic, if a devoted (insert religion here) doesn’t believe that women should be allowed to drive, then they have the right to deny all women driver’s licenses, based on their personal beliefs? If she agrees with what SHE’S doing, then she has to agree with that statement as well. Obviously she would not, therefore she’s wrong. And after several failed marriages, she’s a total hypocrite as well.
I’ll give her this though…she DOES represent the face of christians though…to me when I see her face in articles, she looks mean, spiteful, judgmental, and kinda ugly. Just like christian attitudes towards gays are.
I’m glad she’s in jail, she deserves to be. she was basically trying to institute sharia law into the states…religion’s laws overriding the secular ones. She just changed the religion to christianity.
What a tool…if she had shame, I hope she feel a lot of it, but odds are she sees this as a victory of sorts.
Since this question appears to come up repeatedly, I’ll comment from my own understanding.
I am an elected official in Michigan, but it appears many of the same principles apply to Kentucky. The County Clerk is an elected official because they are responsible for running the elections. In an attempt to ensure the elections are run with as little outside influence as possible, the clerk must live in the county and be a respected representative of the people of the county, and be answerable only to the people of the county or the legislative bodies at the county level or the state level.
This works pretty well usually. The county clerk does not have to obey a single person who might order them to throw away ballots, or rig elections. And if the county clerk is found to be corrupt the people can eject them at the next election (assuming the people care). Which means at most only a couple bad elections occur before the clerk is ousted. The theory is that the independence of the clerks is more important at a local level than the rare case of a couple bad elections. Most of the clerks I know are passionate about running fair elections, and get very irritated when the state or federal legislature changes the rules to make elections harder to run and/or less fair to their constituents.
The clerks are also responsible for certifying the accuracy of the election results. Again, this is a position which needs a certain amount of independence. A clerk appointed by a governor has an interest in seeing that governor re-elected, which is something you don’t want in the person who is running the election.
The tasks of a municipal clerk are not simply standing over a desk and filling out forms. It does make sense for them to be an elected official. But they do need to do their jobs.
Her husband:
The stupid, it burns.
I saw a friend post a {IslamGodwin} of a picture of Davis face next to
redactedwith the overtext of “She believes God Law supersedes Civil Law. So did ThisGuy.”I’m sure we all can guess who the redacted Godwin image was of … [3… 2… 1… bingo]
It was an “over the top” satire of the “martyr”, yet it is useful to point out that their objections to Sharia Law goes both ways.
I know. asking them to be consistent is imposing “my suh-poze-ed” law over their beleefs, but srsly, is it so hard to at least try to be consistent?
@58.
Yes, I thought the same thing. That’s the thing– we are so used to hearing about these bigots refusing to serve gay people that we assume they are individuals acting on their own. You and I don’t like the bakery refusing to bake a gay wedding cake or the pharmacist who refuses to issue RU486 but we accept that the “religious conscience” argument is an alternative position. A stupid and bigoted position and a dangerous one but a position some folks might honestly believe and which can be validly argued. This case is different.
This woman *is* a higher up, if she refuses to issue marriage licenses then it’s not a matter that a couple just goes to another clerk. There *are* no other clerks. By refusing to issue gay marriage licenses she is basically making gay marriage illegal in her county. She is saying counties need not obey federal or state law if the *elected officials* have consciencious objections. To my mind this is as equally outrageous as a president declaring himself ruler for life and refusing to leave after his term is over because he conscientiously thinks monarchy is a better system.
flex @ 64, thanks for that explanation. That makes a lot of sense.
I liked Marcotte’s take on it, that “worrywart liberals who think [jail] is the worst thing and it’s going to backfire by turning her in a martyr, etc. etc.” are wrong. She lists 7 reasons, but this one for me was most compelling:
That would be nice.
Lynna @ 1. Thanks for that article—that’s a perspective I hadn’t read elsewhere. Other news outlets make it sound like the deputy clerks are a bit more conflicted. Example:
I’m sure they’ll be happy to not have to wander through crowds of protesters on their way to the office, though.
LicoriceAllsort, #69
I just read her article too. My favorite was point #4:
Yup. The exact opposite of what she wanted and was fighting for just happened. She and all the Republican politicians who have been heralding her as some champion of freedom have already lost.
I’ve been thinking about this whole discrimination using religion as an excuse thing, and I have an idea:
Let the owners of private businesses refuse to serve people they don’t approve of if, and only if, they post a large sign which says something to the effect of “Due to religious beliefs this establishment will not serve: (long list of bigotry)”. Force them to post the sign prominently all over their business, on their website, all their social media, and on any ads they take out. That’d also prevent their ambushing people they don’t like who try to do business with the bigots, which seems to be half the fun right now.
It seems only fair to me. If they have the right to free practice of their hate, I have the right to full disclosure, so I can be forewarned and choose to avoid them. None of this, of course, should apply to government offices, ever. There should be no question that government employees must obey the laws, full stop.
And I should add that if the owner of the business doesn’t discriminate, employees should be told to either serve all the customers properly or be fired, their choice. That applies to pharmacists and everybody else. If you don’t agree with all legal duties of the job you were hired to do, you shouldn’t be doing it, or you should at the least stop getting in the way.
I hope this makes some sense – I’m not really awake this morning.
Anne #71
I like it.
It works the same as: “Contains peanut, soy and gluten.”
She is non-violent, and should not be in prison, except briefly. She should be given a reasonable fine to pay, commensurate to the damage she has done to the community. How much has her recalcitrance cost the community? Too many in jail already. Maybe even removal from office is sufficient. Why be punitive? Oh, to discourage others?
She wasn’t fulfilling her constitutional duties to the citizens. That is a high crime. All she has to do to get out of jail to agree to fulfill her duties to all citizens, and then do so. Which she won’t do. Only the state legislature can remove her from office, and they won’t meet again until January.
Anne, at 71: Unfortunately, the bigotry is so strong, especially in some places, that such signs, would, I think, help the business, not hurt it. Chik fil a is doing fine as far as I know.
ivarhusa, Davis told the judge that she would continue to refuse to authorize marriage licenses if she were fined, and that she would prevent her deputy clerks from authorizing them if she were released. It was unclear whether the fine would come from her or from the county gov’t (taxpayers). She was given the option to avoid jail if she would permit her deputy clerks to sign marriage licenses in her stead and refused. Basically, jail came as a last resort.
The satirical Twitter feed @nexttokimdavis is pretty hilarious. Byline: “I sit next to Kim Davis. This was supposed to just be a chill job. Goddamn it, Kim.” Plenty of people in the comments chiding her for swearing and taking the lord’s name in vain. Take popcorn.
I liked the comment from Ben Corey (of Formerly Fundie) that was recently posted on Slacktivist as well:
That one’s going to leave a mark.
Paul K @76, the rest of us would be forewarned, if nothing else. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?
re 76:
ahhh, “Badge of Honor” <l*ightbulb*> Let’s form an LLC, market those posters, and reap huge profits from those moneybags bigots.
call my lawyer. hes waitin 4 U.
The insurmountable problem with allowing discrimination, with disclosure or otherwise, is that there are towns where not only would those businesses thrive, but the entire town would join in. Towns where would have no access to services at all.
It’s a cute mental image, making them wear it on their sleeves, but loopholes to create sundown towns simply can’t be tolerated.
“…towns where targeted groups would…” that should read.
Anne, Cranky Cat Lady @71 wrote,
Well, that’s been tried in the past with signs saying, “No Colored People served.” or, “Hippies not allowed”. Signs prominently posted in windows to let everyone know their bigotry. And the businesses didn’t fail, and the people who would like to have been served were unable to use those public facilities.
Which creates two (or more) publics. Those with the privilege of going anywhere they wanted, and those who had to learn to avoid areas because they might not be able to get food, hotel rooms, gasoline, etc. Even going into those areas would likely be cause for a beating, one the local police would ignore.
Its been a hard lesson, because we like to think that people are nice and unprejudiced. But the reality is, we are all territorial and tribal primates. The people who, in the 1950s, put up the signs saying, “No Beatniks” were not unfriendly, they weren’t evil, and they didn’t think they were bigots. Instead they rationalized it with reasons like, “Beatniks never spend much money. They’ll spend hours over a cup of coffee. They hurt my business.” The people who put up the “No Blacks” signs would rationalize this with “Colored people smell funny, and my other customers don’t want to be annoyed by their smell. Letting them eat in my diner hurts my business” (I’ve heard that one myself from bigots in the last couple of years.)
The reason we have our public accommodation laws is because we’ve tried, as a society, to see if bigotry would die out over time. It doesn’t. It won’t. Bigotry will always rise up as long as we look at someone different that us, be it a difference of skin color, language, religion, gender, ethnicity, even height and weight, and see someone who does not belong to our group. It’s a primate thing. it’s a horrible trait.
But as risen apes we can overcome it, as fallen angels… I don’t think we can.
Cross posted from the Moments of Political Madness thread.
Various right-wingers are telling Kim Davis what to do, and how to do it.
Link
The quy quoted above, Barber, is Matt Barber. He supposedly left Liberty Counsel to run BarbWire, an über rightwing website. But Barber still participates in Liberty Counsel’s propaganda efforts. The lawyers of Liberty Counsel run a so-called “ministry” which includes a daily radio show. Barber participates regularly on the radio show.
Lynna @43 quoted Ted Cruz:
Ted, you mendacious asshole. Rosa Parks. Or were all the Christian women arrested as part of the labor, suffrage, anti-war, civil rights, and environmental movements not living according to their faith?
Um. Judge David Bunning is a Republican who was nominated by George W. Bush. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t take his orders from the Obama administration.
Of course you’re all correct that the signs would probably encourage hatred and bigotry. But it’d sure be nice if we could identify these arsehats, so the rest of us could avoid them.
And her predecessor was her mother. They see it as a hereditary office.
re 88
tell that to JEB!
@ivarhusa # 74
The judge is responsible to administer a reasonable punishment for the county clerks contempt of court. The judge also clearly believes that if xe issued a fine, the actual people paying the fine would be bigots that’ve raised money for her. Because of this, a fine wouldn’t be a reasonable punishment because the clerk wouldn’t actually experience any punishment. A bit of jail time is perfectly acceptable because (unlike with a fine) there’s no way someone else can serve her sentence for her.
re 86
Bunning is also a Christian who has expressed his personal opposition to same-sex marriage. I have no idea what Pastor Cruz is attempting to argue here, but the judge has no reason to be biased against Davis for her religious views. He is simply attempting to get her to follow the law by performing the legal duties of her job as Rowan County’s clerk. Davis could have avoided jail altogether if she had simply allowed marriage licenses to be issued from her office.
I hear that her lawyer is now arguing that any license she didn’t personally sign is, by definition, null and void.
Interesting to hear how that will go down (or up in flames)
Regarding a fine, since she is a government employee (elected) I think starting at $10K per day, and doubling it as time goes on (weekly, maybe) would outpace a gofundme or letmegriftyou campaign rather quickly. Her $80K per year salary would dry up quickly and, RWNJ’s funding her will have less money to screw anyone else over.
Instead, she’s in jail, probably at county expense.
It will a federal jail, or a local jail where the stay is paid for by the federal government, since a federal court ordered the jailing. Very deep pockets.
News from the Guardian: Kentucky clerk unknowingly issued marriage license to transgender man.
So now gay people are getting their marriage licenses in this district and the sky hasn’t fallen in, yet. Oz news link.
The only argument the anti-gays have left seems to be “they’re being given more rights than us!”.
Here’s a fun way to diffuse it if you want a change of pace. Ask what they mean, as usual, and when they get to the part of their rant where they say “gays can marry someone of the opposite sex just like everyone else, so they already have the same rights”, try this counter: “Well then GOOD NEWS! Thanks to the supreme court you, YES YOU now have the same legal right as a gay person to marry someone of the same sex! Isn’t that wonderful?” Then, whatever they start saying next, just wander off saying “yes, wonderful”.
Anne, Cranky Cat Lady @ 87:
Yeah, I sympathize, but such signs historically tended to have an extra little sign hung beneath them: “In fact, you’d best be out by sundown.”
(Not a literal sign, but you know what I mean)
Maybe it was all a miscommunication on Kim Davis’ part: Perhaps she though that “marrying gays” meant that she’d herself have to get married to gay people.
@ Anthrosciguy #18
The timeline as I understand it: Kim Davis was married. In 1994, she got divorced. 5 months later she gave birth to twins. A paternity suit found that the twins’ father was not her former husband.
She then married another guy, and in 2006 they got divorced. She then married the father of her children; they got divorced in 2008. She then remarried her first husband. They are still married.
So yeah, sanctity of marriage and all that…
Davis is appealing her jail sentence.
http://isp.netscape.com/news/story/1001/20150907/a0759
I was confused about what Religious Freedom was supposed to mean until I saw Mrs Betty Bowers description of it: https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/639636321707888640
Now it all makes sense.
Former Arkansas governor, presidential hopeful, and homophobic and transphobic white supremacist Mike Huckabee compares Kim Davis’ situation to slavery
Anti-gay advocate Mike Huckabee will be paying Kim Davis a visit in jail
Liberty is the new family values. When you hear the word in America, run the other way.
Davis to be released from jail, ordered not to interfere with marriage licenses
Mike Huckabee’s petition on his website to President Obama and AG Loretta Lynch:
“Peaceably practicing their faith”
Lawl.
*snicker*,
There is no right to impose your religion upon anybody else. If you aren’t imposing your religion, idjits like Davis will back down to the extent that they don’t tell others what they can/can’t do, and follow the constitution. Too bad you are so stupid not to see the obvious, and put the first amendment into its proper context….
Look at this. Look at this fucking ridiculous spectacle; this bunch of self-indulgent fucking bullshit. Watch as she stomps onstage to Eye of the Tiger, tears streaming down her face as if she’s been through some sort of meaningful fight. Watch her get patted on the back, and listen as hundreds of people cheer for a complete stranger for no other reason than she is a virulent fucking bigot.
Everyone in that crowd fucking disgusts me, and I am really quite angry.
Thumper, #108
I share that sentiment.
But I do get joy out of knowing that she will continue to lose at every single step of this “fight”.
And she will be regarded as a “George Wallace” of the next generation.
“We did not grant Kim Davis any rights to use ‘My Tune -The Eye Of The Tiger,’” Survivor lead singer Frankie Sullivan posted on Facebook. “I would not grant her the rights to use Charmin!”
Looks like they intend to take action to protect their intellectual property, too. Could be a serious schadenfreude moment coming.
@ Saad
I honestly can’t wait. One day my grandchildren will come in and say “Grandad, we just found out about this Kim Davis person in history class. We’re studying “The History of the US Culture Wars 1990 – 2020″. It says she hated gay people. Why did she hate gay people? What did they ever do to her?”. They will be utterly confused by the very concept. And the world will be a better place.
Huckabee:
Ms. Davis wasn’t jailed for peaceably practicing her faith. Ms. Davis was jailed for refusing to follow the law and do her job, as defined by said law. Pretty simple, Mr. Huckabee, you break the law, and what happens?
Caine, #111
Huckabee has already answered that question by saying Abraham Lincoln also broke the law by getting rid of slavery. He went against the Dredd Scott decision just like Kim Davis is doing against the Oberfell decision.
Yes, he literally made that comparison.
Saad:
Oh my. I suppose he hasn’t thought that through to its final implication, eh?
Extremist militant group Oath Keepers offering to send Kim Davis armed protection against U.S. Marshals