Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel attorney who is representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis during her ongoing refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses, appeared on the "WallBuilders Live" radio program today, where he said that requiring Davis to issue such marriage licenses is like requiring her to provide licenses to "sodomize children."
"A clerk provides licenses to do something," Staver explained. "A license to operate a motor vehicle on the road, a license to build a particular facility or a license to do this or a license to do that or a license to operate a business. So that person is licensing someone to do something and in this case, they're licensing what? They're licensing something that is directly contrary to the core of their religious convictions, to engage in sinful activity among same-sex relations and sanction something that is contrary to the Scriptures and that is marriage of two people of the same sex."
"To force someone like that to give a license for something that will legalize, that will put a stamp of approval on something that is absolute rebellion against God, sinful, then that is a direct collision of unprecedented magnitude," he continued, saying that requiring Davis to do her job is like requiring her "to grant a license to engage in pornography, to grant a license to sodomize children or something of that nature."
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“It is imperative that Kim Davis follow the law and allow same-sex couples to access their constitutional right to marry the person they love. Period,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “While Davis has the right to believe whatever she likes, as a public official she has no legal basis to refuse to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. The overwhelming majority of public officials across this country are following the law, and history will not judge her kindly. It’s far past time for this needless ordeal to end.”
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Brian Mason, the deputy clerk who issued the license to the couple minutes before, told BuzzFeed News that Davis's name had appeared in that field in all 99 licenses issued before the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision in June. “Her name goes there, yeah," Mason said. “But she is not here. I don't have her permission. I don’t have her consent.” He would not comment on who instructed him to replace her name with the words "Rowan County."
However, Chief Deputy Roberta Eaerly told BuzzFeed News, "As a group we decided to issue [the licenses] from Rowan County.”
Asked what gave staff the authority to omit Davis's name, Earley said, “I have no other comment.”
Mason told BuzzFeed News that in Thursday’s contempt-of-court hearing, Judge Bunning acknowledged it was unclear if licenses issued without Davis’s authority were valid. “That is why the judge said marriage licenses may not be valid,” Mason said. “We don’t know. No one could give us an answer.”
“The application for stay presented to Justice (Elena) Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied,” the order said.
Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 6th district, referred Davis’ request to the full court, which denied the stay without comment.
A stay issued earlier by U.S. District Judge David Bunning expired Monday.
In a separate development, the Kentucky attorney general is mulling whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether she violated the state official misconduct statute when her office refused to issue a license to a Rowan County gay couple.
Official misconduct is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 365 days in jail.
The Rowan County Attorney's Office said on Friday that it has referred to the Attorney General's Office a charge of official misconduct against Davis. A release from the county attorneys office says Kentucky Bar Association "Rules of the Supreme Court of Kentucky prohibit the Rowan County Attorney's Office from prosecuting Davis" because they are involved in current litigation with Davis.
"Typically, the attorney general's office refers conflict cases to a prosecutor from another county," the release says.
The release says Rowan County Government and the Rowan County Attorney's Office cannot take any other action against Kim Davis.
"Kentucky state government is the only entity that can move to have Kim Davis removed as Rowan County Clerk," the release says.
A spokeswoman for the attorney generals office told WKYT they are looking into the matter.
Official misconduct in the first degree is a Class A misdemeanor and is punishable with imprisonment not to exceed 12 months and fines of $500.
Official misconduct in the second degree is a Class B misdemeanor and carries a potential punishment of up to 90 days imprisonment and fines of $250.
The charge must be tried in court before a designation of first or second degree is placed upon it.
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| Kentucky County Clerk Casey Davis |
“Our law says ‘one man and one woman’ and that is what I held my hand up and took an oath to and that is what I expected.
"If it takes it, I will go to jail over — if it takes my life, I will die for because I believe I owe that to the people that fought so I can have the freedom that I have, I owe that to them today, and you do, we all do.
"They fought and died so we could have this freedom and I’m going to fight and die for my kids and your kids can keep it.”
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| Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis (R) |
“The injunction operates not against Davis personally, but against the holder of her office of Rowan County Clerk.
"In light of the binding holding of Obergefell, it cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court.
"There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal.”
Three Kentucky county clerks who are refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples drew thunderous cheers from a crowd gathered at the state capitol on Saturday.
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis spoke briefly at the rally organized by The Family Foundation of Kentucky, appearing emotional as she thanked supporters.
“I need your prayers … to continue to stand firm in what we believe,” she said to cheers.
Davis has been sued by The American Civil Liberties Union for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She says her Christian faith prohibits her from signing the licenses. A federal judge has ruled Davis must issue the licenses, but her attorneys are appealing the decision.
A crowd of a few thousand, many of them churchgoers from around the state, filled the lawn in the rear of the capitol building, many carrying signs saying “Freedom of religion” and waving American flags.
The three clerks, Davis, Kay Schwartz of Whitley County and Casey Davis from Casey County, halted all marriage licenses from their offices after the Supreme Court ruling in June that legalized same-sex marriage.
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| Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis (R) |
The couple, James Yates and William Smith Jr., joined three other couples (two of which are straight) in suing Kim Davis after she stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide earlier this year.As the couple mention in the video, although the county clerk's lawyers are appealing the ruling by Judge Bunning, there is no stay on the ruling making it law until some court of authority issues a stay.
Davis claims her religious beliefs will be violated if she issues same-sex couples marriage licenses.
In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge David Bunning wrote that Davis “is refusing to recognize the legal force of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence in performing her duties” and her “religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk.”
U.S. District Judge David Bunning granted a preliminary injunction against Davis that was requested by Rowan County couples who want marriage licenses. Davis has refused to issue marriage licenses in her county since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in June.
Davis is bound by her duties as a public servant to obey the law, Bunning wrote.
"She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do. However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk," Bunning wrote.
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| County Clerk Kim Davis of Kentucky refusing marriage license to same-sex couple |
Late Tuesday, Davis filed a lawsuit against Beshear in federal district court. She blamed the governor for instructing all 120 of the state's county clerks to comply with this summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.
Beshear's stance left dissenting county clerks vulnerable to lawsuits, including two that she currently faces, filed by groups of her constituents, Davis said. U.S. District Judge David Bunning is expected to rule in these cases in coming days.
"The Commonwealth of Kentucky, acting through Governor Beshear, has deprived Davis of her religious-conscience rights guaranteed by the United States and Kentucky constitutions and laws, by insisting that Davis issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples contrary to her conscience, based on her sincerely held religious beliefs," Davis' lawsuit says.
“When you voluntarily decide to run for office, and you win, and you raise your hand and you take the oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States… that oath doesn’t say ‘I will uphold the parts of the Constitution that I agree with and won’t with the parts I don’t agree with.'”
“You can continue to have your own personal beliefs but, you’re also taking an oath to fulfill the duties prescribed by law, and if you are at that point to where your personal convictions tell you that you simply cannot fulfill your duties that you were elected to do, than obviously an honorable course to take is to resign and let someone else step-in who feels that they can fulfill those duties.”
This morning, I advised Mr. Davis that I respect his right to his own personal beliefs regarding same-sex marriages.Davis has also asked that same-sex couples be allowed to obtain their marriage licenses online so he doesn't have to deal with them.
However, when he was elected, he took a constitutional oath to uphold the United States Constitution. According to the United States Supreme Court, the Constitution now requires that governmental officials in Kentucky and elsewhere must recognize same-sex marriages as valid and allow them to take place. One of Mr. Davis’ duties as county court clerk is to issue marriage licenses, and the Supreme Court now says that the United States Constitution requires those marriage licenses to be issued regardless of gender. Mr. Davis’ own county attorney has advised him that his oath requires him to do so.
