Kentucky deputy clerk casts doubt on validity of Kim Davis’s marriage forms

Again, she was out not because she had done anything to earn her freedom, but because her deputies did the job Davis wouldn’t do and issued the marriage licenses as required by a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage.

The judge’s order said that if Davis should interfere in any way with her clerks issuing the licenses, “that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered a violation of this Order and appropriate sanctions will be considered”.

The marriage license that the couple received said “pursuant to federal court order” on it, and instead of listing Davis’ name and Rowan County, it says city of Morehead, the county seat.

Davis has been at the heart of a media and cultural firestorm over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

It’s one thing to have religious beliefs, Marshall said, but public officials are bound by the Constitution “and the U.S. Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution”.

Earlier this month, Davis’ attorneys said marriage licenses issued out of her office were invalid because she did not sign them or approve her deputy clerks to issuing them. I can’t imagine she had a change of heart during her jail time, so is she just going to grit her teeth and be OK with directly defying the cause she so believed in that she went to jail for?

In the American folk-hero sweepstakes, Kim Davis doesn’t come close to Norma Rae or Rosa Parks. Many, including Davis herself, have claimed her stance to be that of martyr, however, being prosecuted for not following governmental laws does not make Davis a martyr for her religious beliefs. Davis wasn’t jailed because of her Christian faith. It seems to me that it is quite possible that denying same-sex couples the right to marriage, while referencing the ideals of Christianity, may have in fact been a violation of the exact statute used to justify it. The government is not supposed to make laws on the basis of any religion.

As for the LGBT community, Mashable reported that a billboard-sized lesson was erected in Davis’s hometown, citing a widely abandoned biblical practice to discredit those who use the Bible as a justification to fight same-sex marriage.

Mason has calmly and cheerfully issued marriage licenses in Rowan County, often amid a scrum of TV cameras and recorders documenting his every move. I think there should have been some sort of trial for her. Everyone has the right to a trial, so why did she not get one?

However, Hamilton County, Tenn., Judge Jeffrey Atherton has taken a different tack to express his displease with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Put simply, Davis cannot break a law that doesn’t exist.