Only in Kentucky.
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis doesn’t much like the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, she dislikes the ruling so much that she has refused to provide marriage licenses of any sort to anyone – thus refusing to conduct a specific duty of her office based on her religious convictions.
The issue was taken to federal court and it’s fair to say the judiciary was not amused. U.S. District Judge David Bunning rejected her religious freedom argument, as did the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in the person of Justice Elena Kagan, who told Davis to peddle her papers elsewhere.
Still, Davis has refused to comply and couples of all varieties have been refused service by the Office of the Rowan County Clerk. A showdown looms – Bunning is likely to find her in contempt today.
Davis isn’t alone. Clerks in Whitley and Casey counties have similarly refused service to same sex couples. The commonwealth, as far as can be determined, is the lone state that has failed to fully comply with the Obergefell decision.
In a sense, the Davis situation is the mirror image of a celebrated incident that involved another Kentuckian, John T. Scopes, of Paducah, who gained fame as the defendant in what became known as the Monkey Trial.
Scopes, a University of Kentucky graduate, was an educator in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 when he was charged with violating a state law that prohibited the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in the classroom. Like the Davis case, it became a cause celeb with Clarence Darrow serving as Scopes’ defense attorney and William Jennings Bryan joining the prosecution.
Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, a verdict later overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court on a technicality. Amazingly, the law Scopes was charged with violating remained on the books until 1967 when it was finally repealed by the Tennessee legislature.
Like the Davis situation, the Monkey Trial sparked a national debate over the intertwining of religion, primarily the practice of the Christian faith, with public affairs, with one side preaching freedom of religion and the other promoting secularism.
Obviously, as current events establish, it is a debate that continues to this day, even as it becomes obvious that America has become a much more secular society over the last 90 years.
So Kim Davis represents the omega to John T. Scopes’ alpha. Scopes made his stand for science, left Dayton and become a rather noted and successful geologist. Davis is making her stand for God, she insists. But rather than express her convictions and resign her position in an act of principle which could be applauded, she has opted to stick around, violating the clear tenets of the law and collecting a salary, provided by the good people of Rowan County, under false pretenses.
Davis insists she is persisting in openly violating a federal court order because the deity is whispering in her ear, informing one shunned marriage license applicant that she was operating “under God’s authority’’ as opposed to the authority of the U.S. Constitution.
“To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience,’’ Davis said in a statement. But she refuses to take the ethical path and resign – likely because of her estimated $80,000 per year salary, a tidy sum in Rowan County and throughout most of the commonwealth – insisting she has “done my job well’’ and that “I intend to continue to serve the people of Rowan County, but I cannot violate my conscience.”
No one is asking Davis to violate her conscience. They are simply asking her to do her job, which doesn’t seem unreasonable. Her claim that she has performed her tasks well flies in the face of all available evidence. If she is unable to provide one of the primary services offered by the Office of the Rowan County Clerk she needs to honorably step aside so a willing official can sidle in and carry out those neglected duties.
It’s really as simple as that.
Before proceeding further, a quick defense of Davis. Much has been made of the fact that she is on her fourth marriage, a situation that many assume the deity frowns upon, and that her twin offspring were not fathered by the man to whom she was married at the time of conception. Her personal background has nothing to do with the issue at hand. But more importantly, all that history occurred in a time period before she was “saved’’ and embraced the teachings of Jesus Christ. Since then she has endeavored to lead what many would deem a pious existence.
Fair enough. It’s time to lay off. That was then. This is now.
Besides, concentrating on Davis’s past muddies the waters of the present and detracts from the real debate – should a public official be entitled to violate any law that violates his or her religious faith and continue to serve in that post? Should a Jewish meat inspector for the Department of Agriculture be allowed to reject all pork products for consumption? Should a Muslim judge be permitted to set aside common law and instead follow the dictates of Sharia?
It is what one might properly call a slippery slope.
The clerk’s office is not a church. It is a place where individuals of all faiths, creeds and sexual orientation visit to transact business. One of the duties, albeit a new one, is to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Clerks don’t get a chance to pick-and-choose which laws to obey and which to violate. Nor should they.
This all seems so obvious.
Somehow, Davis has concluded she can simply ignore those job requirements that she maintains violate her faith, offering up claims of religious freedom out of thin air. If the law forced her to adopt a specific theology, she would have a case. Instead all the law is asking her to do is her job.
A great play by Lawrence and Lee based on the monkey trial, “Inherit the Wind,’’ covers the subject of imposing one’s religious convictions on others – which Davis is certainly doing. In one dramatic scene, Henry Drummond, representing the character based on Darrow, is cross examining Matthew Harrison Brady, based on Bryan.
“Is that the way of things?!’’ Drummond roars. “God tells Brady what is good! To be against Brady is to be against God!’’
Drummond derisively refers to Brady as “the prophet from Nebraska.’’
“The gospel according to Brady!! God speaks to Brady, and Brady tells the world!! Brady!!! Brady!!! Brady, Almighty!!!’’
He ends, asserting that perhaps Darwin and others have the audacity to think that God might whisper to them as well.
“Extend the Testaments!’’ Drummond yells. “Let us have a book of Brady! We shall hex the Pentateuch and slip you in neatly between Numbers and Deuteronomy!!’’
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Prophet from Morehead, who obviously believes that to be against her is to be against God, rejecting any notion that those in a same-sex relationship, hoping to get married, receive a different message from the deity.
The Gospel According to Kim Davis, the 13th apostle.
Scopes, who died in 1970, is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah. His gravestone contains the epitaph, “A Man of Courage.’’ It seems unlikely Davis’s actions will earn her similar praise.
Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.
To read more from Bill Straub, click here.
Preaching to the choir here, Bill. Usually, when someone is required to do something on their job that they have objections to, rather than trying to buck the system, they either conform or quit. I don’t know why this woman just didn’t quit her job. Did she really think the judiciary would agree with her, especially after SCOTUS voted as they did? It really boggles the mind.
Then there’s the four marriages …
It’s very easy to test the motive of Kentucky clerk Davis in refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul says people are not to divorce, but if they do, they must not remarry. (The basis for the Catholic Church’s objections.)
Has Clerk Davis been denying marriage licenses to divorced people? If not, her denials to gay couples clearly stem from homophobic bigotry, not from obedience to God’s command, since she wouldn’t be obeying God if she issued licenses to divorced people.