Ironically, the quote conservatives use from Jesus to show that he was against gay marriage is actually his most ardent statement against divorce.
Matthew 19:4-9:
They choose to legislate around their contorted interpretation of verses 4 & 5, but choose to ignore the direct admonition found in verses 7-9.
This seems as good a thread as any to mention a bit of weaseling or pandering or something that is going on in my little city, Chillicothe, Ohio. The way to have a purely civil wedding ceremony in Chillicothe has been to get a license from the clerk of the municipal court, and then be married by one of the two municipal court judges. Probably in anticipation of the SCOTUS case, the two judges decided in April that they would just stop doing weddings. This means that if you want to have a civil wedding in Chillicothe you are out of luck. The judges, of course, say this is all about court efficiency, nothing to do with same sex marriage. Yeah right. They appear to be in violation of state law and an Ohio Supreme Court opnion. I hope they are forced to reverse this cowardly decision.
It is somewhat unusual that we have a political system which allows a minor government official to refuse to obey the directions of a higher government authority. In most historical regimes, a disobedient official like Davis would have been removed from office.
Yes, but jesus forgave here and that makes it all OK.
I have zero respect for her and only contempt. If you are hired and/or elected to do a job, then you should do your job. Period. She had ample warning this was coming and should could have resigned instead of putting herself in the position to refuse service to people who were legally entitled to it. Entitled isn’t a bad word, it’s the interest you get back you paid for a Certificate of Deposit, because you are entitled to it. You pay your taxes, you vote, you elect someone into office you are entitled to have them perform services they promised to do when elected into office.
You sound like you would fit in well in a Unitarian church - are there none in your area?
IMNSHO, this is meaningless.
The real issue and cause for debate is that Davis is a walking embodiment of why we have the 1st Amendment at all. She is a government official mandating that everyone has to kowtow to her particular flavor of religious idiocy. And as such, she should be fired outright and arrested for repeated civil rights violations.
I think that Kim Davis’ personal life and religious choices are actually a distraction from the real issue. She can believe that she’s been cleansed by finding faith and that homosexuality is a sin all she wants; America allows freedom of religion. But if her beliefs and the law are at odds, refusing to grant marriage certificates is a cop-out for martyrdom. She should really put her faith where her mouth is and resign from a system that wants her to do something she sees as a compromise of her belief. For example, if I had a job that asked me to murder somebody (something I’d be opposed to based on my beliefs), I wouldn’t simply refuse and then show up to work the next day as if nothing had happened. I’d quit the job. That’s standing by your beliefs. She may even want to do one better by referencing the old saying “America: love it or leave it.”
Legally Davis can’t be fired. She’s an elected official so she’d have to be impeached and the state legislature is not currently in session to do so (assuming that they would want to).
Being human means being a sinner. Every person with a moral compass occasionally violates that moral compass. Does that mean only libertines should be listened to on areas of morality? If we only listen to perfect messengers than we will never listen to anyone. Global warming is either a big issue or not totally independent of whether Al Gore uses airplane travel or not. Gay marriage is either right or not totally independent of how many husbands Ms Davis had.
Furthermore as a legal matter the law says that the government can compel people to violate their religious beliefs only if there is a compelling reason to do so and the law does so in the least restrictive manner possible. There may be a way to get marriage certificates issued in that county without having to have Ms Davis violate her beliefs.
If there is no way to have those certificates issued without her violating her beliefs than I believe she should resign. I also felt that those elected officials who refused to defend anti-gay marriage propositions in court should have resigned. It seems an awful double standard to force a county clerk to resign for doing what the governor of California was celebrated for having done.
There is not a Unitarian church is my little city. Despite my differences with the more fundamentalist members of my church, I remain a Christian. I would probably fit in better in a mainline protestant church, like the United Methodist Church.
A point against that is that many of the most virulent homophobes have turned out to be closeted, self-loathing homosexuals themselves. They hate people who engage in the sins that they are most attracted to, and especially loathe the suggestion that those behaviors aren’t sinful in the first place. I understand, if not actually sympathize, with them. How would it feel to be told that all your willpower and lifelong suffering to control your natural urges has really just been a mug’s game?
Cite? 
I agree with you about the anti-gay crusaders, but the folks I’m talking about aren’t crusaders or haters. They are just people who are trying to follow the bible as the literal, inerrant word of God, which is a mug’s game. I fit more into the Marcus Borg, taking it seriously without taking it literally, camp.
As to a cite for the non-ickiness of me and my bride, I was asserting our non-ickiness to the five other couples in my small group, so our continued inclusion is my cite.
There are over 3000 County Clerks. About 2000+ are Christian. But only one crazed wingnut, who afaik, isn’t even following the canon of any major Church.
So, no- no pattern. Other than the fact that it was a slow news period and the media jumped all over this minor story.
Good luck on your journey. And I truly respect your acknowledgment that your beliefs have changed.
Sure, it might be impossible to accept the entire bible as inerrant. But the different sects DO claim to stand for different things. It always surprises me that churchgoers will ignore basic doctrinal issues simply because one church is convenient, or where their friends go. If someone’s church is essentially a social club, good for them. But they might want to get off their high holy horse.
And, if the blessed religions can mean whatever each believer wants them to mean, then why do they spend so much effort dissing each other? 
There are all kinds of protestant faiths that are more liberal on all manner of doctrine than evangelism. You could search those out without going all the way to UU. When we were researching churches, we found one that seemed a really good match with our beliefs/philosophy, location, community, and spiritual leader. But Rabbi Bob told us our disbelief in any supreme being pretty much automatically disqualified us!
And if your church friends would no longer be your friends if you stopped going to their church and professing belief in things you no longer believe, well, I don’t have much use for that kind of “friends.” In a weird way, you can be thankful of the role they played helping you on your journey.
Ain’t becoming a grown-up and thinking for yourself fun?! I’m only 54 - I’ll let you know if I ever get there myself! 
I agree with this. I do think she needs to step down because her faith doesn’t trump the laws of the land, but I actually do believe she’s being sincere as well. I think that Aspidistra’s repentant sinner to heroic martyr theory is very well put, but I also believe that there is, relatedly, a desire to prove herself as a convert. She isn’t just a repentant sinner, but a new Christian. As a convert myself (in a Pentecostal church - I am now a liberal Lutheran), I do remember how some folks kind of were slightly dismissive of my views because they had been Christian a lot longer than me and I was just new to the whole thing and over a few years, I’d see the truth of things (and before one judges - this wasn’t someone in the Pentecostal church; this was someone in the liberal Lutheran church). I can see in that situation where someone can feel like I can show that I’m just as much of a Christian as the lifelong ones are. Jesus tells us that we are all equal regardless of the “hour” we came to believe, but plenty of Christians think they have greater knowledge due to ‘being their first’ and maybe Davis was responding to that.
elca! Elca! Elllll- ca!
Let’s not neglect to condemn the legal group representing her, the Liberty Counsel, and its head, Mat Staver. Kim Davis is, uh, a simple woman who may have just knuckled-under to the law if she had been represented by competent counsel and not by a group whose goal it was to drum up publicity for themselves. Instead of telling her the reality of the situation, they encouraged her delusional stand to defy the court order.
You can be a Christian Unitarian, you could also be a Buddhist Unitarian - heck you can even be an atheist Unitarian(I have no idea how that works). Some would could this aspect of the religion a strength, others see it as a weakness; YMMV.
Likewise, staying in a sinful marriage (remarriage after divorce) is a continuing sin. She has been forgiven for her past sins, but implicit in that forgiveness is the expectation that she will go forward and sin no more. If she stays in her second (or third, or fourth) marriage, she is continuing to sin, after her forgiveness. If this were not so, a gay couple could confess their sins, be forgiven, yet stay in their same sex marriage without committing a sin. Forgiveness covers all the sinful things you did in your past; it doesn’t give Kim Davis a free pass to continue her sinful marriage.
Suppose a gay couple applies for a marriage license, and is told they cannot receive one because of the clerk’s religious beliefs. Can’t they just say they have been forgiven, therefore not a violation of anyone’s religious beliefs to issue them a marriage license? It comes down to whose forgiveness trumps the other, doesn’t it?
I think this is just a matter of convenience for her as far as backdating sin and things of that nature go. You could argue, in light of her new piousness, that her first divorce is null and void and she needs to begin serving her first husband. It feels sick to even write that but that’s how insane it all seems. And like someone mentioned before, this is piecemeal Christianity, which sort of weakens its reliability. It’s similar to the guy who’s currently trying to fight a murder charge by saying marijuana made him do it. If the courts allow that as a defense, I could get pissed off at someone, light a joint, blow their head off, and rest assured that I was secure from having to do any real time for it. Some boundaries need to exist and if she’s going to use a particular faith as her defense to break the law, she needs to be ready to back it up with an impeccable record. Otherwise, she needs to quit hiding behind faith and admit she’s homophobic and that it is preventing her from doing her job. She doesn’t need to go to jail, she just needs to get into a different line of work.