The Kim Davis Warning

This will hopefully be my second and last article on the Kim Davis debacle, but probably the not example of inequality or backwards justice that will come out of Kentucky.

Lets break it down… Kim Davis, who serves as the Rowan County Clerk of Court, has been refusing to uphold the Supreme Court’s Decision in June on issuing marriage licenses to all individuals who wish to be married. She feels that she is religiously exempt from honoring that ruling because of her “sincerely held beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman, or another man and that same woman, or that same woman and another man” whatever it may be.

After the Supreme Court denied her emergency stay application, the same gay couple seeking a marriage license was denied. They left frustrated and reasonably upset as this was their 5th time trying to get one. The District judge, Justice Bunning, acting swiftly and without hesitation calling not only her to explain herself in his courtroom, but her entire office. She showed up, responded, and he was unmoved and sentenced her to federal prison for contempt of court until she complies with the rulings. He also announced at the same time that the entire office would face the same fate unless they decided immediately to issue licenses, which they decided would be Friday (today).

This justice had every right to send Kim Davis to jail for being in contempt of court. He had given her multiple chances to comply with his order and given her options to extend to the stay on his order, which all the higher courts denied. Here is the lesson to be learned in this whole situation. Kim Davis is not a martyr. She is most likely going to use this whole thing to take her lower-middle class family out of the backwoods of Kentucky to big riches. I even watched as the Right Wing Watch (a Conservative Facebook group) compare her to being a Jew in Nazi times in Germany? WHAT? You are going to compare someone who is defying the federal government in every way imaginable to innocent people who were sent to concentration camps, starved and gassed to death? Not even close.

This should be a warning to other clerks who are going to try and get a religious exemption, and it should be a warning to states in crafting religious exemption laws. Same-sex marriage was ruled legal by the Supreme Court of the United States and we need to follow their lead. This means states that would like to place religious exemptions need to carefully craft it so that, like abortions, you can still obtain one if need be. They also cannot make it so dreadfully impossible that no one will do it.

This will be a defining moment in our history and I am happy that the Supreme Court is standing firm on their previous ruling in June and is not bowing to these ridiculous religious exemptions. That have also so much as indicated that this is not a valid argument when you are a government employee (State or Federal). I will stand on that point again. As an elected official, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution in that oath the only reference to “God” is that you are taking this oath in front of him and everybody else. This is important because as an elected official you are supposed to be above religion, because believe it or not, not every taxpayer you work for is a Christian, Conservative, or even religious in general. I know this is a hard thing to do as a ‘devoted’ member of religion, but if you cannot do that then you have no right to be in elected office.

This is what makes America great and the Supreme Court one of the best parts of American society. Back in the African American Civil Rights Movement, Christianity and religion was used as an excuse to deny people interracial marriage and to justify the “white supremacy” mentality. Luckily the Supreme Court at the time understood that the only thing that matters in America is the Constitution, not whether or not the founding fathers were religious or masons, but that this document was not written on the basis of religion. It was written for the people. It is true that today the meaning of the Constitution has been interpreted differently, but it is a test to the power of this document that it remains relevant so many years later.

It is the cornerstone of America and to try and use religion to pervert it, whether directly or indirectly, would be something that our founding fathers would strongly disagree with.

So be warned county clerks, if you do not obey a federal courts warning, you will be sentenced to prison because the only thing that rules in the court rooms across America is that justice, not God.