It's true. Marriage is a legal contract between two people.

B/c they believe that it's a religious (read: Christian) rite—a contract between two people, a man and a woman, and God. They can't fathom that it's simply a legal and secular contract, and nothing else. Marriage can have a religious significance, and indeed many different religions have marriage. People like Davis are unwilling to decouple their beliefs about marriage from the simple legality of marriage. It's more significant to her (and people like her) than that. It's an undeniable truth to her.

She claims to be afraid of going to hell if she issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but the fear of eternal suffering has strangely not enticed her to resign but to dig in. It's like I previously said in this thread, which is probably b/c she enjoys the salary. She doesn't want to be inconvenienced (the inconvenience of having to resign as county clerk, where she makes $80,000--courtesy of the taxpayers of Rowan County--and find another job in a county where the median income per year is less than half that) and would prefer to inconvenience other people instead.

She can be impeached, but that would require the state legislature to get together to discuss that, and the Kentucky General Assembly will convene in four months. That would be four months he her flouting her duties or stewing in a jail cell for her (unless she complies w/ the order or the judge decides to release her for constitutional reasons).


For all their whining and whinging of people getting handouts, conservatives are quick to pony up when one of their own is in trouble, usually due to stupid shit like this or homophobic pizzeria owners and wedding bakers.

You can thank Bill O'Reilly and Fox and Friends for that one.

Yes. I wonder, though, if it also depends on which religion that the marriage falls under. How many people have walked into her office that weren't Christians, but she issued them a marriage license b/c they were a heterosexual couple? I mean, could you imagine if, say, a Wiccan couple walks into her office and tells Davis of their religious views, and how they plan to marry in a sacred grove under the watchful gaze of the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. Would she refuse to issue the license to a pagan couple, or feel that it's not worth the effort to refuse them? Probably not since, at least they're not icky gay people, mang.


The governor could call a special session, but it would be costly, and for this reason he won't do so.

As absolutely horrified I am that this has all played out in my homestate, I will add some clarification:

While Kentucky is very conservative and has many conservative state legislators, it is worth mentioning that while we haven't voted for a Democratic president since maybe Jimmy Carter (and maybe not even then), we do have a Democratic majority in the state legislator, a Democratic governor and many key Democrat elected officials, such as Attorney General Jack Conway. A lot of ties back to old Southern Democrat roots (you wouldn't know it based on how Red the South is, but the roots and origins of the Democratic Party is all based in the South), but it also is based on a surprisingly active liberal (semi-liberal) presence of the Democrats.

So there are pockets of sanity in our otherwise backwards state. Interestingly, Jack Conway did something very similar to the County Clerk here, but opposite - Conway refused to prosecute an "offense" of gay marriage prior to the SC ruling. Then again, Conway also had his cabinet move out of the way for another part of the state government to do so if they chose, stating he couldn't morally be the one to take the action, despite his station.



Which is ultimately the way to do it - say your morals conflict, but then let the government do its job to the letter of the law. Not be a roadblock to enacting a law you just don't happen to like.

Meanwhile in Calgary we have a bus driver refusing to drive a bus and complaining in the newspaper because it's painted a rainbow color.

*sigh*

Oh Canada....

Remineds me about that thing years ago regarding schools and a rhing ithink it was amendment 42 or something?

lol