County Clerk Defies Federal, Appeals, And Scotus Court Orders Against Her, Invoking Her Faith And Religious Freedom

[CA Steve]

I "ambushed" my grand kids at a birthday party the other day by taking out my phone and making a video of the birthday boy blowing out the candles. It was such a contrived moment.

 

[Daniel2]

from The Kentucky Trial Court Review:
 

The Kentucky Trial Court Review

Exclusive. Just conducted an interview with Cecil Watkins, the Rowan County Attorney. Watkins (who to my knowledge) hasn't given any interviews.

Watkins indicates that Kim Davis "does not represent" Rowan County and is not representative of its inclusive values.

From Day One, Watkins told David I "will not and cannot support" you in her defiance of the law. Not only that he was clear he would not represent her as the law in the case of same sex marriage is clear.

While he has no stance on same sex marriage, well-established federal law must be followed.

Watkins wanted to emphasize several other things.

First that everyone who works at the courthouse has endured cursing as they enter the building. And it's not just at her office. Everyone in the courthouse is scared to come to work.

Second that Liberty Counsel will leave Kim Davis high and dry when this charade is over. Watkins thinks the funds they raise off the case should go to Rowan County.

Finally and most importantly he has learned that deputy clerks would issue lawful marriage licenses. They are simply afraid to do so. And if Judge Bunning instructs them to do so . . . they will.

Davis has put, in the words of Watkins, her employees and everyone in the courthouse in a "terrible position."

Watkins, in his role as the County Attorney, will be in court tomorrow for the hearing at 11:00 in Ashland. He is pictured being sworn in.

Ed. Note - The takeaways from the Watkins interview are clear. Davis is acting alone in her zealous mission. Her conduct has terrorized not just her staff but everyone that works in the courthouse. And all for a foolish mission aided by out of state charlatan lawyers trying to raise money for their "religious liberty" mission.

Shannon Ragland
Kentucky Trial Court Review
 

Edited September 3, 2015 by Daniel2

[Calm]

I "ambushed" my grand kids at a birthday party the other day by taking out my phone and making a video of the birthday boy blowing out the candles. It was such a contrived moment.

My grandkids are such posers, it kind of ruins the moment for the older two. The youngest is still in the don't know I am supposed to look graceful and polished stage (or manly for grandson who takes karate) and just cracks the funniset faces.

Ps: the ambush type pictures, they look great in set pieces

Edited September 3, 2015 by calmoriah

[Daniel2]

So they took a video, did they?

I wonder how many people routinely video their filing of paperwork with civil servants at government offices?

One might almost suspect that they might have been anticipating that it wouldn't be a rubber-stamp exercise.

Hmm, I wonder why they might have thought that?

Double-hmm, I wonder why they didn't just drive a few klicks farther down the road to get their license with no fuss? Save themselves the nationwide humiliation about which they are so pathetically bleating?

(Okay, I admit it. I don't really wonder.)

So, at best we have a grandstanding county clerk and a couple of grandstanding drama queens -- and the media only notices the clerk's grandstanding.

Why am I not surprised?

If the roles were reversed, I wonder how long it would take before the usual suspects started sanctimoniously pontificating about "the scent of hypocrisy?"

 

 

Much has been said about the motives of the couples who have been denied marriage licenses, including their decision to video-document their repeated attempts to apply.

 

How about, instead of jumping to conclusions, we go 'straight' to the source:

 

“It Would Be Sacrificing Our Dignity to Go Anywhere Else,” Say Victims of Anti-Gay Clerk

By Mark Joseph Stern

 

David Moore and David Ermold didn’t plan to cause a national controversy when they asked for a marriage license at Kentucky’s Rowan County courthouse in July. But after posting footage of county clerk Kim Davis refusing to grant them a marriage license on account of their orientation, the couple became heroes of the gay rights movement—and targets of the anti-gay “religious liberty” crowd. Davis has since lost a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of other gay couples against whom she discriminated. But she is continuing to fight for a right to refuse service to gay Kentuckians. I spoke with Moore and Ermold on Tuesday about their experience at the courthouse, their legal battle, and where they’ll go from here.

 

Why did you wait for the Supreme Court to declare marriage a fundamental right before obtaining a license?

 

Moore: We talked about getting married for quite a long time. We’d been together for so long, we already assumed in our own mind that we are married. This is about securing our right. We work at two different universities. We want to start considering our health plan, our future—the personal rights that we’ve now been granted.

 

Did you consider the possibility that Davis might refuse to serve you?

 

Ermold: We knew going in that Davis had denied other couples. I didn’t know that anyone had actually talked to her face-to-face. I thought, if we could talk to her and she could see us, explain how long we’ve been together—that we’re people too, just like her—it might change her mind. She did get emotional when we talked, but nothing has changed.

 

You went to the courthouse to obtain a marriage license twice, and you filmed both encounters. Why did you put it on video?

 

Ermold: We wanted to document it. The only way you have any power as a citizen is to document your experience. If you go in and nobody sees it, people can say, that didn’t happen the way you said it happened. We didn’t go in and make a scene. We went in and did a mundane thing that people do every day. The way we were treated, that’s up to the [courthouse employees]. They chose to act that way.

 

Moore: David didn’t put that video up on YouTube right away. We talked about it, thought about it. When we put that up there, we didn’t anticipate it was going to get as much of a response as it did.

 

We didn’t doctor it or edit the video. That’s just the way it happened. It is hard to watch. I haven’t watched the second video. I can’t watch it. It’s too upsetting.

 

Ermold: Watching the video, you relive it all over again. It was worse than I thought it was.

 

Moore: This is what we have to remember for this moment in our lives. It’s disappointing. But we’ll get through it.

 

What was your immediate reaction to Davis’ refusal to serve you?

 

Moore: As it was happening, I kind of was emotionally shut off. People came in—they were harassing us, recording us, they called the cops on us. My goal was to talk to Kim Davis. I was emotionally out of it. I didn’t feel it until we were leaving.

 

Then, all of a sudden, I felt everything. I felt I was being degraded, being humiliated, treated like a second-class citizen. When you’re gay and you grow up in Kentucky, you kind of get used to hiding who you are, accommodating other people and making them feel comfortable. You don’t realize how much of your own dignity you’ve given away. It catches up to you.

 

What will you do if this lawsuit gets caught up in an interminable appeals process?

 

Moore: I don’t want it to drag on for years and years. We want to get married in Rowan County. This is where we live and pay taxes. But if the court isn’t going to come through for us— We have to be realistic and think about those things.

 

Ermold: This is our home county. We’d be sacrificing our dignity to go anywhere else.

 

Rosa Parks clearly knew she was taking a stand against institutionalized discrimination that would cause controversy.

 

I'd wager that if Ms. Parks had had access to a cellphone, she would have videotaped the incident, as well.

[Calm]

from The Kentucky Trial Court Review:

Would like to see this confirmed by a few more sources, not just repeated. Just to be sure, but it does reflect caution on how one should be treating her version of civil disobedience and whether to respect it at all.

Are there interviews of bystanders supporting her wh are not her emplyees or colleagues? Neighbours....though they might not want to say anything given the long history of the family in town.

I was wondering why she had such a narrow victory at her mother's retirement after 37 years when she was a familiar fixture in the office. This might be why.

[Daniel2]

I also found this article to be thought-provoking, suggesting that Ms. Davis (despite her clear personal views and willing stance) may also be an unwitting victim, of sorts, of the Liberty Counsel:

 

 

Is Kentucky’s Infamous Anti-Gay Clerk Getting Taken for a Ride by Her Lawyers?
By Mark Joseph Stern
 
On Friday, anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court, begging the justices to stay a lower court decision instructing her to grant marriage licenses. (Davis filed the application to Justice Elena Kagan, who will likely refer it to the full court.) As you may recall, Davis refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples following the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Several couples sued, and Davis—a taxpayer-funded county clerk—chose to stop issuing marriage licenses altogether. A federal judge ordered her to continue doing her job, but Davis refused, citing her First Amendment rights. The Sixth Circuit declined to stay the judge’s order, explaining that “it cannot be defensibly argued” that Davis’ rights were violated.

 

Davis’ application to the Supreme Court is less an application for a preliminary injunction than a sententious protest against Obergefell. It accuses the Obergefell majority of “redefining” marriage—a staple of right-wing argot—three times. It sneers that the ruling was decided by a bare “5-4 majority.” It quotes, extensively and approvingly, the Obergefell dissenters’ ominous warnings about the apocalyptic clash between marriage equality and religious freedom. And, in case you didn’t get the point, it actually refers to “same-sex ‘marriage’ ”—complete with contemptuous scare quotes around “marriage.”

 

It would be easy to write a story mocking the application’s histrionics and thinly veiled animus. But quite frankly, I’m growing a bit concerned about Davis’ lawyers. Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right fringe group that specializes in anti-gay litigation. (Naturally, it is also a Christian ministry and a tax-exempt nonprofit.) Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has used Davis’ case to raise money and boost publicity for his group, going so far as to hold a rally for Davis. In his spare time, Staver has continued to participate in the Faith and Freedom radio show; in recent weeks, he has described the newly gay-tolerant Boy Scouts as “a playground for pedophiles” and compared acceptance of Obergefell to turning over a Jew to the Nazis.

 

Law firms regularly use sexy cases to increase their own profiles, and it’s perfectly fine to bandy about your client to further a constitutional cause. (Gay rights litigators do it all the time.) But Staver is taking things too far. The first sign of trouble arose early in the case: When a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licenses or be held in contempt of court, the Liberty Counsel advised her to disobey the ruling. Good lawyers don’t usually tell their clients to defy lawful court orders, especially when jail time is a real possibility. Yet the Liberty Counsel didn’t mind putting their client at risk—perhaps because the idea of a middle-aged woman being hauled off to jail for purportedly following her conscience would send thousands of anti-gay Americans reaching for their pitchforks (and checkbooks).

 

Now the Liberty Counsel has filed an angry, rambling application to the Supreme Court that is little more than an anti-Obergefell rant dressed up as a legal document. The fact that Davis’ lawyers couldn’t tone down the animus for long enough to pen the application is distressing but not surprising. More and more, it’s beginning to look like the Liberty Counsel is taking Davis for a ride, using her doomed case to promote itself and its extremist principles. Davis has certainly humiliated and degraded the gay couples whom she turned away. But I wonder if, on some level, she isn’t a victim, too.

 

Edited September 3, 2015 by Daniel2

[Calm]

" Then, all of a sudden, I felt everything. I felt I was being degraded, being humiliated, treated like a second-class citizen. When you’re gay and you grow up in Kentucky, you kind of get used to hiding who you are, accommodating other people and making them feel comfortable. You don’t realize how much of your own dignity you’ve given away. It catches up to you."

That makes more sense than the previous quote which was just juvenile (felt that way then, still feel that way with half the drugs)...So much for the media automatically doing gay couples favours. Want to get stories out way to quick and shallow.

[HappyJackWagon]

 

Scott Lloyd, on 03 Sept 2015 - 12:49 AM, said:

I don't think Rosa Parks was trying to pick a fight. Arguably, the gay couples were when they ambushed the county clerk with video cameras.

Nehor;

Wait.......are you serious?

Rosa Parks engaged in civil disobedience. Peacefully standing up (or sitting down) for yourself against a bully is not the same thing as picking a fight.

[thesometimesaint]

Rosa Parks engaged in civil disobedience. Peacefully standing up (or sitting down) for yourself against a bully is not the same thing as picking a fight.

 

Yes she was picking a fight. She just used different weapons.

[HappyJackWagon]

Yes she was picking a fight. She just used different weapons.

So when a Bully demands your child's lunch money is your kid picking a fight by refusing to comply. Is "turning and walking away", or "telling a teacher" or saying "no" just a different weapon of fighting?

[Daniel2]

Again, in the spirit of responding to Russell's questions about the motives of the same-sex couples attempting to apply for marriage licenses, here is an article detailing the motivations of the lesbian couple that was repeatedly denied and ultimately sued:

 

Lesbian couple, like Kentucky clerk, standing up for beliefs

 

By CLAIRE GALOFAROBy CLAIRE GALOFARO, Associated Press 

 

MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — As April Miller drove to work, still too stunned to grasp the magnitude of the fight erupting around her, an old song crackled over the car radio.

 

"Will you still love me for the rest of my life?" the band Chicago sang. "I can't go on if I'm on my own."

 

Miller pulled over. And for the first time since she and her partner stepped into the vortex of history, she wept.

 

"I had been trying to keep it together, keep it even, trying not to let my blood pressure go up," she said.

 

The day before, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused her a license to marry Karen Roberts, her partner for more than a decade. Rather than comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage nationwide, the Apostolic Christian has invoked "God's authority" in refusing to license any marriages at all.

 

"All the excitement built up, then there was this crash of disappointment and anger," Miller said. "I felt really marginalized, dehumanized, ostracized. I just emotionally crashed."

 

For two months, Miller and Roberts have felt stuck on what seems like an endless carnival ride: U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis to issue the licenses. The couple celebrated and dashed to the courthouse, holding hands, but Davis denied them. An appeals court upheld Bunning's order. Another dash to the courthouse, another denial. Then the Supreme Court denied the clerk's request for a reprieve. A fourth run to the courthouse, a fourth denial.

 

The couple has lived quietly together for years, never intending to lead a battle that has consumed their town of Morehead, where Miller is a tenured university professor and Roberts, a retired teacher, looks after their 21-year-old disabled daughter.

 

They never went to a gay pride parade or joined an LGBT group. Now they see their faces on the front pages of newspapers, just like Davis. Miller said she feels like they're walking parallel paths, under the unexpected glare of television cameras.

 

"We understand how hard it is to stand up for what you believe in," she said. "This is really the first time that we've done that. We know from this experience how hard it is. There are some days when all you want to do is give up. She's standing up for what she believes in too. And we respect her for it."

 

The couple met 20 years ago and became best friends. A decade later, they realized they were in love. They divorced their husbands, exchanged promise rings and started a family. They've chosen to live openly as a couple, but quietly, only confirming their relationship if someone asked. They moved to Kentucky nearly 10 years ago when Miller was hired as an assistant dean at Morehead State University.

 

They have struggled with discrimination, they said, but never because of their sexual orientation. Roberts' daughter Jessica has Down syndrome, along with visual and hearing impairments, so they focused on advocating for children with disabilities.

 

They are the sort of couple that eats leftover meatloaf on Friday nights, bickers about grocery lists and laundry, and sometimes finishes each other's thoughts, "just like every other old married couple," Roberts said.

 

They celebrated the Supreme Court's landmark decision by exchanging wedding rings — simple white gold bands, ringed in diamonds. Then, Miller saw on the local evening news that their county clerk was refusing to issue marriage licenses.

 

Miller stormed into their bedroom and woke up Roberts.

 

"I can't believe this is happening," Miller remembers saying. "We are going to make something happen about this. We are not going to sit by and let her say that we can't get married."

 

The next morning, they became the first couple to march into Davis' office, demand a license, and be denied. Then they called anyone they could think of — two local prosecutors, the attorney general, the governor. When no one could help them, they called the American Civil Liberties Union.

 

The ACLU sued Davis on behalf of Miller and Roberts, a gay couple and two straight couples.

 

Some in their town have come to see them as heroes since then. Others consider them rabble-rousers, needlessly forcing a kind, Christian woman to forsake her conviction. They argue that the couples could simply go to another county, less than an hour's drive away, where clerks are issuing licenses.

 

But the couples counter, and the courts have agreed, that they shouldn't have to.

 

"This was about us that first day — when we couldn't get a license, it was about us," Roberts said.

 

"But we have a home and cars and professions and a really committed relationship and a family that's not going to bust up over this. A lot of these kids don't," Miller continued. "And they need somebody that will stand up and say that. It's really not about us anymore. This has gotten a lot bigger than us."

 

Associated PressCopyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Daniel2]

" Then, all of a sudden, I felt everything. I felt I was being degraded, being humiliated, treated like a second-class citizen. When you’re gay and you grow up in Kentucky, you kind of get used to hiding who you are, accommodating other people and making them feel comfortable. You don’t realize how much of your own dignity you’ve given away. It catches up to you."

That makes more sense than the previous quote which was just juvenile (felt that way then, still feel that way with half the drugs)...So much for the media automatically doing gay couples favours. Want to get stories out way to quick and shallow.

 

I agree, Calmoriah.

 

If Mormon Apologetics has taught us anything, it's that context is crucial.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Daniel2

[Calm]

So when a Bully demands your child's lunch money is your kid picking a fight by refusing to comply. Is "turning and walking away", or "telling a teacher" or saying "no" just a different weapon of fighting?

She sat where she knew the bus driver would require her to move. It would be more like your kid knowingly sitting where the bully always sts and refusing to move.

[HappyJackWagon]

She sat where she knew the bus driver would require her to move. It would be more like your kid knowingly sitting where the bully always sts and refusing to move.

So she didn't allow the bully to tell her what to do and that's picking a fight. I don't see it.

[Scott Lloyd]

She sat where she knew the bus driver would require her to move. It would be more like your kid knowingly sitting where the bully always sts and refusing to move.

Call it one of those weird, twist-of-fate things, but I find myself in agreement with Happy Jack Wagon and, consequently, in disagreement with calmoriah. There is a difference between merely refusing to roll over and be a victim and picking a fight by aggressively confronting someone to demand something, however entitled to that thing one may believe one is.

 

As I understand it, Rosa Parks was exhausted after a hard day of work and, on this occasion, was not going to be intimidated into moving. It was a textbook example of passive resistance.

 

Not so with the marriage license seekers. They were not being forced to do anything. As Russell has pointed out, they could have gone elsewhere and gotten what they wanted.

 

I don't agree with what the county clerk is doing, but those who confronted her are far from comparable to Rosa Parks.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[thesometimesaint]

So she didn't allow the bully to tell her what to do and that's picking a fight. I don't see it.

 

The bully in this case was the law.

 

It's a type of moral jujitsu. Using your opponents strengths against them.

Edited September 3, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[Scott Lloyd]

It's a type of moral jujitsu. Using your opponents strengths against them.

Quite a stretch.

[Scott Lloyd]

It seems, Ms. Clark should be focusing a little more on her own marriage. It appears she's been married four times and gave birth to twins from her third husband while still married to her first husband. Clearly, she is very pro marriage.

This has been discussed. You have some catching up to do.

[The Nehor]

She sat where she knew the bus driver would require her to move. It would be more like your kid knowingly sitting where the bully always sts and refusing to move.

I would commend a child doing such a thing.

[thesometimesaint]

Quite a stretch.

 

Not really. That is what moral non-violence is all about.

[jkwilliams]

Call it one of those weird, twist-of-fate things, but I find myself in agreement with Happy Jack Wagon and, consequently, in disagreement with calmoriah. There is a difference between merely refusing to roll over and be a victim and picking a fight by aggressively confronting someone to demand something, however entitled to that thing one may believe one is.

 

As I understand it, Rosa Parks was exhausted after a hard day of work and, on this occasion, was not going to be intimidated into moving. It was a textbook example of passive resistance.

 

Not so with the marriage license seekers. They were not being forced to do anything. As Russell has pointed out, they could have gone elsewhere and gotten what they wanted.

 

I don't agree with what the county clerk is doing, but those who confronted her are far from comparable to Rosa Parks.

 

So, by your logic, it's OK to deny someone their civil rights as long as they can go to another county? What if some county prohibited LDS church meetings. Would you be OK with that if church members could just go to another county to attend church? These people went to a government office to exercise their rights under the Constitution. Are you seriously suggesting they did something wrong? 

 

If a government official, elected or otherwise, cannot perform his or her responsibilities, he or she should resign and certainly should not expect to be paid by the taxpayers.

[The Nehor]

Call it one of those weird, twist-of-fate things, but I find myself in agreement with Happy Jack Wagon and, consequently, in disagreement with calmoriah. There is a difference between merely refusing to roll over and be a victim and picking a fight by aggressively confronting someone to demand something, however entitled to that thing one may believe one is.

 

As I understand it, Rosa Parks was exhausted after a hard day of work and, on this occasion, was not going to be intimidated into moving. It was a textbook example of passive resistance.

 

Not so with the marriage license seekers. They were not being forced to do anything. As Russell has pointed out, they could have gone elsewhere and gotten what they wanted.

 

I don't agree with what the county clerk is doing, but those who confronted her are far from comparable to Rosa Parks.

And if your advice was followed passively we would end up with some places you could go to get only certain kinds of marriage licenses and others that follow the law. Acceptance of segregation.

I think gay marriage is bad for America and I firmly believe homosexuality is a sin. That being said I am humiliated that this stance puts me on the same side as people like this dingbat woman. We lost this fight and I now wonder if we did not deserve to lose.

[Scott Lloyd]

I would commend a child doing such a thing.

So would I. But I wouldn't call it picking a fight.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

So, by your logic, it's OK to deny someone their civil rights as long as they can go to another county? What if some county prohibited LDS church meetings. Would you be OK with that if church members could just go to another county to attend church? These people went to a government office to exercise their rights under the Constitution. Are you seriously suggesting they did something wrong? 

 

If a government official, elected or otherwise, cannot perform his or her responsibilities, he or she should resign and certainly should not expect to be paid by the taxpayers.

I already said I didn't agree with what the county clerk is doing. I just don't find those who confronted her comparable to Rosa Parks.

 

Please try to follow the conversation.

[ERayR]

So, by your logic, it's OK to deny someone their civil rights as long as they can go to another county? What if some county prohibited LDS church meetings. Would you be OK with that if church members could just go to another county to attend church? These people went to a government office to exercise their rights under the Constitution. Are you seriously suggesting they did something wrong? 

 

If a government official, elected or otherwise, cannot perform his or her responsibilities, he or she should resign and certainly should not expect to be paid by the taxpayers.

 

The world must be ending.  I find myself agreeing with you.