Kentucky Governor: Clerk’s arguments ‘absurd’ and ‘obtuse’

News sites have mostly written about her standoffs with same-sex couples or her five-day stint in jail.

In that same interview, Davis said she did not believe there was a problem with the licenses that her deputy clerks have issued since she returned to work on September 14.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (left) had described county clerk Kim Davis” (right) reasons for not giving gay couples marriage licenses as “absurd” and “obtuse’. The order “specifically (targeted) clerks like Davis who possess certain religious beliefs about marriage“, she and her lawyers claimed.

U.S. District Judge David Bennung, who also ruled on the suit the ACLU brought against Davis and found her in contempt of court, has been asked by the governor to dismiss the claim. She is also an Apostolic Christian.

“Simply stated, Davis” role is a legal one – not a moral or religious one, ‘ Beshear’s attorneys wrote in a court document.

Beshear’s lawyer, Palmer G. Vance, deemed Davis’ legal trouble a “meritless assault on the rule of law”.

Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, who spent five days in jail for defying a series of federal court orders, filed a lawsuit against the governor, alleging he violated her religious freedom by asking clerks to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, which effectively legalized gay marriage across the nation.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis makes a statement to the media at the front door of the Rowan County Judicial Centre.

In late June, when the Supreme Court announced its ruling, Beshear sent a letter to the state’s 120 county clerks telling how the state meant to react. “But as elected officials, they do prescribe how we must act”, he wrote in the letter. As such, she was denying citizens the legal right to obtain marriage licenses. Meanwhile, Schwartz only issues licenses to opposite-sex couples, promising to turn away any same-sex couple because it’s what Jesus would have wanted… or something.

This week, news broke that Davis met privately with Pope Francis during his recent visit to the United States.

“I want to start by thanking my Lord and my savior Jesus Christ, because without him none of this would have ever been possible, for he is my strength that carries me”, she said. When the information about this secret meeting got out, the pope was asked if he thought it was right for people to break the law using the basis of religious freedom.

“Conscientious objection is a right that is a part of every human right… and if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.”

At the end of the meeting, which was reportedly conducted in English, Davis says the pontiff handed her and her husband rosaries; she plans to give hers to her mother, who is a Catholic.

[Photos Courtesy of Ty Wright/Getty Images].