It’s Over: Kim Davis Allows Deputies To Continue Issuing Marriage Licenses

[kpete]

The Kim Davis saga seems to have just ended in a whimper. Returning to work Monday morning, the embattled Kentucky county clerk announced that though she still refuses to issue marriages licenses herself, she will abide U.S. District Judge David Bunning’s order not to interfere with her deputies issuing them.

She told reporters gathered outside the Rowan County Courthouse Monday morning that she believes allowing her office to issue the licenses to same-sex couples means that she is being “forced to disobey her God.” She repeatedly called such licenses — which she will not permit to bear her name or title — “unauthorized,” echoing her lawyers’ claims that they are totally invalid.

“I want the whole world to know … If any (deputy clerk] feels they must issue an unauthorized license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice, and I will take no action against them,” she said. “However, any unauthorized license that they issue will not have my name, my title or my authority on it. Instead, the license will state that they are issued pursuant to a federal court order.”

If a form contains her name — which it normally would for the sole purpose of confirming the legal validity of the license — she believes it “violates my deeply-held religious convictions and conscience. For me, this would be an act of disobedience to my God.” Davis still insists that any license issued by the office is “issued under the authority of Kim Davis, County Clerk,” which is why she is so adamant that they are “unauthorized.”

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/14/3701104/kim-davis-saga-over/

Choking back tears this morning at a news conference before her return to work, a defiant Davis said she is faced with a "seemingly impossible choice ... my conscience or my freedom," referring to her opposition to same-sex marriages.

She added: "I'm no hero."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-licenses-issued-authority/story?id=33737136

[Gothmog]

1. She evidently did not enjoy her time in jail

[closeupready]

2. Good. If Kim Davis can ignore court orders with impunity, then deadbeat dads

nationwide would have rejoiced. And frankly, anyone seeking a precedent to ignore court orders to do things.

[xmas74]

38. That's all we need.

Too many ignoring court orders as it is.

[riderinthestorm]

3. Happy to be rec #1. nt

[oldandhappy]

4. Yes, an $80,000 salary makes one flexible!

[TubbersUK]

7. Quite - I have a vision of her son giving her a good talking to

when he realised that she was on the brink of squandering his inheritance, nice little 80k per annum public sinecures don't grow on trees after all.

[BlueJazz]

11. Geez..as low as my "Standards" are, for 80,000 bucks I'd issue marriage licenses to cockroaches.

[emulatorloo]

51. She should give it all to charity, God would like that

If she believes she is being "forced to disobey my God," then she needs to make amends. I am sure eighty grand to charity would make things right between them.

[hollysmom]

54. I am sure her version of charity is not your version of charity (mine neither)

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

5. She added: "I'm no hero."

Yeah. We knew that already.

You're also no Christian, and no Democrat.

[trotsky]

8. She gets to pick her own labels.

She's a Christian and a Democrat; her beliefs just differ from liberal ones.

[Jack Rabbit]

23. More importantly, not only is she no Democrat

(and I would be at least mildly surprised if she was a Democrat in the first place), she's no democrat.

[homegirl]

31. Does anyone

think the local Democratic Party/County Central Committee will endorse her in the next election cycle?

[Jack Rabbit]

42. No, I don't think they would, or should

In California, the state Democratic Party has a rule that obligates the subordinate Democratic Party organizations to support any and all Democratic Party candidates in local elections. However, in 1980 Tom Metzger, the Grand Dragon in the California statewide organization of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, somehow managed to win the Democratic primary making him the party's nominee for a seat in Congress in San Diego County. As a practical matter, no Democrat was going to win the general election for that seat in a CD that was about 4 to 1 GOP; Clare Bergener, a conservative Republican, had represented the district for decades and had a good reputation even with constituents who didn't see eye-to-eye with him on most issues. The local Democratic party committee still wanted to know from the state organization what they supposed to do about the situation. Did they really have to support the Grand Dragon for a seat in Congress? The state party made an exception to the rule for this situation. Bergener, with about 87% of the total votes casts, easily won re-election over Metzger, who would go on to become a founder of the White Aryan Resistance.

[whatthehey]

49. Yes. This is KY.

Democratic is quite often a family/traditional allegiance and bears little relationship to politics. Democrats have 53% of party registration and yet the state went 60%+ for Romney.

[yuiyoshida]

53. She would probably be more comfortable

being a Republican and with the Tea Party. She has that option, open to her if she wants it and I am sure no Democrats here would miss her, particularly.

[TlalocW]

6. So, to sum up

They've got some new forms without her name on it?
Her clerks are going to continue to hand them out.
She doesn't believe that they're authorized, which is fine because I'm sure she and her ilk don't believe any same-sex marriages anywhere are authorized.

I can feel Huckabee's heart breaking now - not because of the actual compromise Kim is making, but because of it, he can't milk her anymore as a religious martyr. C'mon, Kim! Mike had a stage driven to the jail for you! Throw him a frickin' bone!

TlalocW

[kpete]

24. TlalocW

I just LOVE your post!


thanks and peace,
kp

[rurallib]

39. soon enough Kim Davis and Mike Huckabee will be names in trivia quizes

and no one will be able to recall who or what they were

[stage left]

9. "My conscience or my freedom"

She had one more choice. She could have resigned. But then that $80,000 annual salary trumped her "conscience" all to hell.

[Demobrat]

27. Yep. Wallking away from the cushy job she got through nepotism

was never even a consideration.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. It's not over until that county elects someone else. n/t

[patricia92243]

12. Issueing them is nothing - filing them on the records is what makes them legal. Will she do that??

[Ford_Prefect]

13. Call me a skeptic but I have a feeling there will be at least one more act in this farce.

[randome]

14. Are civil suits still in progress?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[Trekologer]

37. I would think her statements open her up to further liability

In addition to damages from her initial refusal to issue, her statements that the licenses issued really aren't valid anyway should mean the cases against her aren't going away anytime soon. But I am not a lawyer, so...

[struggle4progress]

15. Welcome back to work Kim Davis: now just do your job

By Suzanne Garment
September 14, 2015

... What motivated her to become a martyr to a lost cause? Is she getting bad legal advice from manipulative right-wing groups pushing their own fund-raising and political agendas? Is her obduracy a reaction to her three failed marriages? How can you be serious about a woman whose husband proclaims, “Judge Bunning is a butt?” ... Are we set for another cycle of victory, overreach and reaction, with the same cast of martyrs, zealots, opportunists and lawyers belonging to all those categories? ...

... it would be so nice to think that after watching this play what seems like a million times, we’d be able to write a different ending — to let it go, to make sure that the same-sex marriage licenses get issued while the dissenters can squirm away semi-gracefully, to avoid protest, counter-fund-raising, impassioned oppositional organizing and martyr making ...

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/09/13/welcome-back-to-work-kim-davis-now-just-do-your-job/

[catbyte]

16. "Choking back tears...she added, 'I'm no hero.'"

That's for damned sure. She's nothing but a fucking hypocritical, cherry picking bigot. I hope I never hear that cretin's name again.

[Tsiyu]

17. Why does she believe a publicly funded government office

is a church?

It's not your fucking church, Kim Davis! The taxpayers pay for it AND your salary to do the BUSINESS of your county, not to preach or judge the taxpayer who pays your salary and for your comfy office.

Your own bible says to honor the law, so quit your damned $80,000 a year job or shut your self-righteous, self-absorbed, delusional pie hole.

This just makes me so sick.

[Tree-Hugger]

18. She is 1,000% correct

She is not a hero.

[niyad]

19. kimmy, take your "deeply held religious beliefs" OUT of the secular world, where SECULAR people

have to pay your SECULAR salary, and go find work in a convent or something. quit being such a damned hypocritical crybaby wanna-be martyr (there are days I really root for the lions)

[niyad]

20. awww, isn't that nice? the wanna-be, hypocritical martyr is going to "allow" tax-payer-funded

public servants to do their jobs. how noble of her.

not to mention, she knows that she would be going back to jail otherwise.

[daleanime]

21. Kim Davis finally right about one thing....

she's no hero.

[asjr]

22. Okay, she still gets her salary and her "job" as preacher.

If I had voted for her I would now begin to kick her out!

[barbtries]

25. she got one thing right

she's no hero.

[left-of-center2012]

26. Guess the gig at Fox didn't come

Bummer

[Takket]

36. i can't imagine why fox didn't offer her a contract...

[link:|

[underpants]

44. Yeah

She doesn't got their "corporate 'model'"

[Raster]

48. New series at Faux: Land of the Blond Bimbos

[L. Coyote]

28. What the hell, personal delusions forced to take second place to the law? Who knew?

Where is she hiding "her god" anyway? She should just ask her god to come out of the closet once and for all.

[Keep-Left]

29. She has a choice

get another job

[RandySF]

30. Because retaliation against her employees would have brought a world of pain

She would then be dealing with county law enforcement in addition to civil suits.

[LynneSin]

32. Two things that Kim Davis said that I will actually agree with her statement

“forced to disobey her God.” - Yes she will be forced to disobey a fictitious diety she and her current husband have created that is so far out of mainstream religion that she somehow will justify the fact that she has been divorced 3 times, cheated on several husbands, bore children out of wedlock and yet feels that there is something so unholy and wrong about 2 people in love wanting to make a lifetime commitment who happen to be of the same sex. I myself am a Christian and even I have no issue with marriage equality because I live by the rules of Jesus. The rules this woman live by is a 'God' she has made up to justify her hatred and not a God that is worshiped by most mainstream Christians - ironically the majority either support marriage equality or just don't care anymore.

"I'm no hero." - no you are not. You are a hateful, vile woman. You have not made this world a better place but instead brought more hatred into the world. You are the equivalent of the White people who stood marched behind Ruby Bridges, the African American girl who tried to go to the all-white school. You are those people who screamed the racial slurs and hateful things and that is how your name will be remembered 40 years from now. Those people probably thought they were being 'heroes' 40 years ago keeping the black kids out of their schools. Instead today they are seen as hateful vile people. Never in history have the hateful vile people become the heros.

What's that alarm I hear ringing? That's your 15 minutes and I think it's ended. Go away!

[turbinetree]

33. I guess eating........................

bologna sandwiches were not her favorite food source and getting stripped search.

I still think she will go back to jail-----------------just give it time

[Takket]

34. This isn't good enough for me.

"It's the principle of the thing."

Homosexuals should be allowed marriage licenses without any sort of special wording or provisions like "oh this is just because of some court order". It makes it sound like homosexuals are "getting away with something" or obtaining something through a technicality that they don't really deserve. The county clerk has no reason not to issue them and therefor they should be issued by the county clerk, or by the clerk's deputies, with the full endorsement of the clerk.

I especially don't like the line about understanding if her clerks want to issue a license so they aren't thrown in jail. No, that isn't right. They are issuing licenses because that is the LAW and that is their JOB.

This might be sufficient to keep the peace for now but Davis is still violating the law she took an oath to defend and she should still be impeached!

[closeupready]

40. That occurred to me, also. As county clerk, she is STILL discriminating.

And if a gay couple wanted their license issued by HER just as heterosexual couples get licenses issued by HER, then I wonder how events would unfold.

[csziggy]

55. I'm positive that the legality of those licenses will be challenged in court

If I were one of the couples issued a license without Kim Davis' signature or authority I would insist that Judge Bunning clarify this or that he charge Kim Davis with violation of his court order to not interfere with issuance of the licenses.

Davis and her attorneys have made it clear they do not consider the licenses as issued to be valid. It is only a matter of time that some other religious fanatic decides to contest the validity either in court or by denying the legality of a marriage based on one of those "questionable" licenses. It will just prolong the denial of equal rights to the people who have been put in this limbo by Kim Davis' refusal to obey the law.

If the judge allows this to continue without a clarification, he is as much at fault for any future problems as Kim Davis is.

[Rex]

35. Aww poor little baby has to follow the laws like everyone else!

HA HA HA HA!

[volstork]

41. Good.

Now STFU, Kim. Your 15 minutes are over.

[IDemo]

43. She "allows" them? Irrelevant and immaterial

--a simple sentence found in Kentucky law seems to clear things up. According to statute 61.035, “Any duty enjoined by law or by the Rules of Civil Procedure upon a ministerial officer, and any act permitted to be done by him, may be performed by his lawful deputy.” If Davis can issue licenses, so can her deputies. There is little to suggest that these licenses would or could ever be rejected as legal and binding.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/09/08/3699192/kim-davis-myths/

[Raster]

47. This legal falsehood has been promulgated by Davis' Lead Attorney, Mat Staver, Liberty Council...

...whose entire purpose for this legal charade has been to attempt to force his homophobic and bigoted beliefs upon others. Staver is a RABID HOMOPHOBE, and has been involved with Scott Lively (the American most responsible for Uganda's "Death to Gays" law).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7150024

[underpants]

45. OVER?!? Was it OVER when the gays bombed the Alamo????

Sorry couldn't resist.....with a twist

[Raster]

46. She got one thing right: She is NO hero!

Reich-wing religious tool and fool. KIM DAVIS WAS NEVER JAILED FOR FOLLOWING HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. Kim Davis was jailed for attempting to use the Office of the Rowan County Clerk to force other persons to follow her religious beliefs.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky and Federal Circuit Courts should look into the conduct of Mathew Staver and the Liberty Council, which have undoubtedly not only given her legal counsel advising Davis to break the law, but also aided and abetted Davis in said law breaking.

[mercuryblues]

50. No Kim

Last edited Mon Sep 14, 2015, 04:51 PM - Edit history (1)

it is not your office, it is the people's office. Which is why you went to jail, you can not deny people equal rights under the law because of your religious beliefs. The county clerk's office is not your personal fiefdom.

[Solly Mack]

52. Fuck her. She, like everyone else in government, has no right to impose her religion on others.

Fuck her. Fuck her bigoted beliefs. Fuck her defenders and supporters.

If she really believed as she claims, she'd resign her job. She works for the government. A government that says marriage is an equal right. The mere act of staying on the job means she is happy to compromise her so-called belief system. Otherwise, she wouldn't work for a government that is contrary to he so-called religious beliefs.

She made the choice to remain in a job that conflicts with her stated beliefs. The government isn't forcing her to do anything - except her job.

Her beliefs met the reality of jail and the almighty dollar.

Golly - just look what was stronger. It wasn't her self-professed beliefs either.

She's full of shit. Like all bigots.

[diabeticman]

56. Check out the tweets from one of the people working in the office.

https://twitter.com/nexttokimdavis


"We just issued the first same-sex marriage license since #KimDavis came back. Now we all have to go fucking hug her because we did our job."