Ok, OK, OK.
I’m sorry for using the word “fired” earlier. I was angry.
“Not being famliar with Kentucky politics, I wish we could remove her from her job somehow.”
Is that better?
She’s in contempt. Throw her in jail and levy a fine against her per day equal to what she makes in a day from the job, so she cannot continue to benefit from her criminal conduct. Leave her in jail until she relents or resigns. Done.
The legislature is considering a bill (or possibly a legislator has suggested a bill) that would create a state agency in charge of issuing marriage licenses. The governor can call the legislature into special session if he wants. I suspect (though I can’t say for sure) that he hasn’t done so because he’s worried there won’t be enough votes to impeach. Kentucky isn’t exactly Oregon, and Davis is a Democrat, so you can imagine how intransigent Kentucky Republicans might be about this.
It’s not bad design, exactly; the system has worked for a hundred years. It’s just that until now the office was purely ministerial, and there was no reason to believe any holder would object to carrying out its functions on religious grounds.
This makes me uncomfortable. It would be the state punishing her for her religious beliefs. I have to believe the Governor can do something…some rarely used powers to remove someone like this. She’s not doing her job, so stop paying her and find a way to remove her. Also, it seems like someone at a level higher than her, maybe the Governor again, can appoint someone to perform the one function she won’t do until the legislature is back in session. Assuming that is the only way to have her removed.
The tricky thing for me is that when she started her tenure, there was no conflict between her duties and her religious convictions. The law changed and the conflict arose. But that doesn’t mean she has to act against her religious convictions. Yes, she should do the honorable and sensible thing and resign. But barring that, it is a pickle.
Oh, that does make things more complicated. This will be interesting to watch. But hopefully a short term fix can be instituted so people can get on with their lives.
She’d be punished for not doing her job, which she claims is impossible because of her religious beliefs.
Of course, you being uncomfortable makes me more confident in my views, as I’ve come to recognize you as a reverse moral compass.
Intentionally violating the constitutional rights of citizens when one is bound by oath to uphold those rights is not a religious belief. She has every right to believe whatever she wants, but the rest of us, through our legal institutions, have every right to punish her when she intentionally violates the law for personal profit. This isn’t some personal devotional monument that violates a sub-sub chapter of a zoning code, this is someone who is continuing to do something explicitly illegal because it benefits her bank account to not resign. There is no religion involved here, just straight-up obvious fraud.
Even if she resigns, I think she should be fined the amount she’s been paid since this fiasco began. IMO every paycheck she cashed while she was willfully depriving people of their Constitutional rights is a proceed of crime and should be treated like drug money.
Her job is to verify that applicants qualify to marry under state law.
Her personal beliefs are not part of that list.
She’s not being punished for her beliefs. She’s being punished for making her beliefs the Official Religious Beliefs of Rowan County, Kentucky.
A distinction that won’t make a difference in the fundraising efforts for her supporters, but one that ought to.
In my eyes, she is being punished for her religious views and well she should. My motto is unless you work for a religious institution/business, when you clock in, your faith stays in the hallway.
Well, that’s kind of the thing: she doesn’t have to act against her religious convictions. She can have a deputy clerk sign the same sex couples’ forms. Or she can resign. What she can’t do is prohibit her entire office from issuing same-sex marriage licenses (or no licenses at all right now, in fact) especially in defiance of a court order. She’s in contempt. The thing about civil disobedience is that you have to accept the consequences of your lawbreaking.
Would it make you uncomfortable if the same action was taken for a clerk who refused interracial couples, or Jewish couples, due to their religious beliefs?
I don’t see it that way. She would be punished for not upholding the duties of her office.
As the County Clerk in an elected position, I’m sure she must have taken an oath of office and was sworn in.
I’d rather she was not put in jail. Just quietly removed from office. And if the deputy clerk also refuses, same thing. And on down the line until the rats nest of small minded people are removed.
I wonder what would happen is she was another kind of bigot and refused to grant a license to a heterosexual couple that was of mixed race?
I was wondering about that. There are or were religions that frown on remarriage after divorce (or remarriage after divorce but without an annulment granted by the church). So what if she refused to grant marriage licenses to such couples, or those who were marrying outside their faith? I almost wish someone else was more fundamentalist about this, just to see when the support for such people fails.
Her “beliefs” are just typical American “Cherry Picking” Christianity.
Clearly she has no issue with cheating on her own spouse, multiple divorces, etc. So there’s no rightful “sanctity of marriage” claim here. This is just outright bigotry.
And I think Jesus would tell her that to her face, should she ever meet him, which isn’t near as likely as she thinks.
In my view, her questionable social stature explains her irrational behavior perfectly. If she were an upstanding moral citizen, she would not care if gay people got married. But given her situation she needs to push someone to a lower rung. By grasping to the belief that gays are less than, she lifts herself up in her mind. Pathetic, but common.
Heh. “Katie Lang”.
Methinks that while we’re waiting to hear Kim Davis’ fate, perhaps she could re-read Romans 13:
Recreational troll is recreational.
And obvious.
Not to play too much into a stereotype, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out they were all appearing at the same family reunions as cousins to begin with.
IMO: Jailing her would be a bad idea. Doing so would make her much more of a martyr than she already is and the annoying facebook posts would go through the roof again. A thousand dollar a day fine could work out though. Sure, there would be a gofundme that might cover the first month, but I don’t think that the well for that would be much deeper. Then once the fines start eating into whatever personal reserves she might have I suspect she would soon resign.
Screw that. Jail her and fine her $10k/day for being an asshole. See how far gofundme goes then.
What I want to know is if, under Kentucky law, prisoners in jail for contempt can be made to work a chain gang. That would be funny!
No, it would be the state punishing her for refusing to do her damn job. Phrasing it the way you do reflects your own anguish over the “dilution” (your word) of marriage caused by letting teh gayz have it too, not any attempt to seriously understand the issue.
Job requirements change in any job. You gotta deal with it. Don’t act like the job is something you’re entitled to. You aren’t.
Barring that, she needs to be removed. It isn’t a pickle at all.