Current status of SSM in the holdout states (MAP)

[Torie]

This county clerk in Rowan County has doubled down, by claiming that her deputies willing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples (5 of the 6, with the 6th being her son, so she seems willing to take her son down with her), have no force and effect. She might be in jail for some time. If an elected official refuses to perform their duties in accordance with law, such an official should be impeached, or somehow removed, or a Court should basically take over the duties of the office through a special master. We are a nations of laws, not persons, and if otherwise, this nation would cease to be a civilized nation. It has nothing to do with the merits of SSM, and everything to do with the rule of law.

To engage in some psychobabble, this clerk strikes me as a narcissist. Everything revolves around her desires, the rest including performing her duties, be damned (and probably she took an oath, she is now violating, to follow the law, when she was sworn into office). If she had any decency at all, she would just resign, stating that performing the job now violates her conscience. Why does she not do what seems obvious to anyone who respects the rule of law?

[Torie]

Here is a video of the confrontation of the gay couple and the clerk who refused to issue them a marriage license. It's quite dramatic really, with one of the gay guys sort of sounding like I would sound in that situation.

She really should stay in jail until she resigns, unless the court really has the power to cut her out of the loop, in which event her authority over her clerks is at an end. That strikes me as problematical. I can see how her refusing to issue SSM licenses comports with her religious conscience, but what I cannot see, and what she did not answer in the video, is why her religious beliefs impel her to try to hold onto a job, that she simply cannot perform per her religious beliefs. It would be like someone who is a pacifist in an army platoon demanding to hold onto his or her job while refusing to shoot a gun. So my conscience does not bother me having her rot in jail until she does the right thing. She will get out if all else fails, when her term of office expires. I assume that she cannot run for reelection while in jail.

[Torie]

Jesus shua you sound like a goddam fool. You really do. You're critiquing constitutional law and somersaulting over logic to support a narcissist who won't do her job or allow those she has authority over to do theirs.

You may have trouble keeping up with my line of thought but that's no reason to get nasty.

I'm not being nasty. You sound foolish. Sleep on it and read what you've been saying in the morning.

I haven't had a good night sleep lately so it may be a while before my mind reaches afleitch levels of spontaneous enlightenment.

To succeed that you may need to become the next Rip Van Winkle.

It may require a persistent vegetative state before I come to the conclusion that someone being a narcissist means I should be perfectly ok with jailing them.

She isn't being jailed for being a narcissist, she is being jailed for breaking the law and failing to comply with a direct court order.

She actually is upholding the Constitution of Kentucky which bans gay marriage. The Federal courts have no jurisdiction on the marriage issue plain and simple. She's upholding the law not breaking it.

You know better than this. SCOTUS has interpreted the US Constitution as requiring states to issue licenses for SSM's. This tendency of some SoCons to feel entitled to ignore the rule of law is quite disturbing actually. If you don't like the law, work through the democratic system to try to change it. Just get Cruz, or someone of his ilk, elected POTUS, along with enough similarly minded Senators,  and have him stack the Supreme Court with judges who agree with your point of view. Or cause a Constitutional convention to be held, and enact in the revised Constitutions a provision that gays have no rights, or no marriage rights, or whatever floats your boat. But believing that one is above the law, as interpreted by the Courts, is the road to chaos and anarchy, if that point of view were carried out to its logical conclusion.

[Torie]

Here is a video of the confrontation of the gay couple and the clerk who refused to issue them a marriage license. It's quite dramatic really, with one of the gay guys sort of sounding like I would sound in that situation.

She really should stay in jail until she resigns, unless the court really has the power to cut her out of the loop, in which event her authority over her clerks is at an end. That strikes me as problematical. I can see how her refusing to issue SSM licenses comports with her religious conscience, but what I cannot see, and what she did not answer in the video, is why her religious beliefs impel her to try to hold onto a job, that she simply cannot perform per her religious beliefs. It would be like someone who is a pacifist in an army platoon demanding to hold onto his or her job while refusing to shoot a gun. So my conscience does not bother me having her rot in jail until she does the right thing. She will get out if all else fails, when her term of office expires. I assume that she cannot run for reelection while in jail.

She's not resigning in order to make a stand on the point that county clerks should not be forced to violate their religious beliefs on this issue. If she resigns, she's conceding that she was wrong to not issue the licenses.

Yes, and that is the problem. It is not really about her religious conscience, but rather about her belief that she is above the civil law, and need only follow "God's law." Given that mentality, it's jail time, and that is true even if one wants to assert that her religious conscience requires her to ignore civil law whenever the two conflict. Hey, the longer she stays in jail, the more of martyr she can feel that she is, so maybe it's all worth it for her. Hopefully they cut off her pay while she is in jail (80K a year I might add, which seems excessive for a rather menial job in a rather small rural county with a low cost of living, but I digress).

[Torie]

I get that the judge felt that a fine would be pointless given the inevitable gofundme response from fundies.  But applying steadily increasing fines for each day she refuses to do her job would have been preferable to jail, which even the affected couples did not want to see happen to her.  Also, that way, a steady stream of money could have been transferred daily from disgusting religious people and into the treasury of a county where 29% of its residents live below the poverty line.

It seems that the US District Judge who sent her to jail is a Republican appointee, who is personally opposed to gay marriage

And Kim Davis was elected as a Democrat.  We are through the looking glass here.

The Judge was concerned that if she was out of jail, she would order her staff not to issue licenses. leaving the same sex couples in the lurch. It is kind of weird. I don't know why the judge could not just order that staff could sign the licenses themselves under his authority, and order them not to follow her directives.

[Torie]

It is now clear that she isn't required to get involved, she can just let her deputies do any SSM licenses. So if she blocks them again I think there will be less sympathy. She has to actively get in the way of stopping her deputies instead of just letting it happen. That wont look like her religious liberty is being violated, that will look like discrimination.

Only the hardcore will back her if she stops her deputies from issuing licenses while she lobbies and/or goes through the courts to try and get her name off licenses. She can just step aside while she tries to get relief from the gov, legislature or courts. Anything more will be seen as mean spirited and self-serving.

It appears that the problem has been solved. Dominic Holden, a deputy clerk, will just blow Davis off, and ignore any order that she gives that he is not to issue SSM licenses, and instead issue them in accordance with the court's order. I suppose Kim Davis could attempt to fire Holden, but the court will probably just issue an order that her firing has no force and effect.

[Torie]

It is now clear that she isn't required to get involved, she can just let her deputies do any SSM licenses. So if she blocks them again I think there will be less sympathy. She has to actively get in the way of stopping her deputies instead of just letting it happen. That wont look like her religious liberty is being violated, that will look like discrimination.

Only the hardcore will back her if she stops her deputies from issuing licenses while she lobbies and/or goes through the courts to try and get her name off licenses. She can just step aside while she tries to get relief from the gov, legislature or courts. Anything more will be seen as mean spirited and self-serving.

It appears that the problem has been solved. Dominic Holden, a deputy clerk, will just blow Davis off, and ignore any order that she gives that he is not to issue SSM licenses, and instead issue them in accordance with the court's order. I suppose Kim Davis could attempt to fire Holden, but the court will probably just issue an order that her firing has no force and effect.

Her firing wouldn't have any force because Dominic Holden is a Buzzfeed reporter. The clerk is Brian Mason.

Congrats. You got my post under the klieg lights on the Forum Community board.