by P. David Gardner
The stubborn persistence of religious bigots never ceases to amaze me.
Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk in Ashland, made the headlines a while back when she refused, on religious grounds, to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals who wanted to exercise their legal rights to become a couple in the eyes of the law.
Not only did she do that, she promised (and delivered) to stop issuing licenses to heterosexual couples as well, until such a time as the United States court system "came to its senses" and reversed its decision to allow gay marriage in every state of the Union.
The press arrived in due time, photos were taken and video cameras rolled, and Davis got her 15 minutes of fame. But that apparently wasn't enough to satiate the bigot. In the face of court challenges to her ill-considered stance to not perform the job she was hired to do, she continued to make her stand, saying that her imaginary god tells her not to allow gay couples to marry.
In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, under the U.S. Constitution, same sex couples have the right to marry, and ordered officials in every state to issue marriage licenses. Clerks in several states who had refused to issue licenses before buckled under and began enforcing the terms of the law, issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, but there were a few holdouts, including Davis, who filed an appeal to reverse the law. She said that she would not issue licenses to anyone till the law was reversed.
When challenged, U.S. District Judge David Bunning told her in no uncertain terms to enforce the law even during her appeal. She refused and took her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which last week refused her request for a stay.
Bunning this week ordered her to start enforcing the law. Predictably, she refused, and is now awaiting whatever sanctions that may come her way as a result of her refusal to obey laws she agreed to enforce when she was elected to office.
Davis came down off her cross long enough to say, "To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue. It is about marriage and God's word. It is a matter of religious liberty."
Representing gay couples seeking marriage licenses, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky said, "The duty of public officials is to enforce the law, not place themselves above it."
Some interesting news about Davis came down the pike this week. Apparently she is divorced three times, something that her self-proclaimed Apostolic Christian faith frowns mightily upon. So not only is she a raging bigot, she apparently is quite the daft hypocrite as well.
HOT NEWS ADDITION: Kim Davis has been arrested and is headed for jail. Her time in the slammer would be well spent if she takes the opportunity to reconsider her position as she cool her heels. One can only imagine that her religious friends will be stopping by to nail her to a cross.
