Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis Went To Jail For Not Issuing Marriage Licenses, But She’s Already Free And Still Has A Job
(Photo by Ty Wright/Getty Images)
It has been a few days since we checked in with Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, the Kentucky official who has been refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the fact that it is her job to hand out marriage licenses and gay marriage is legal in all 50 states of the United States. As an elected official, she cannot simply be fired the way you or I would be if we just stopped doing our jobs, but Davis has flouted multiple judicial orders to start giving marriage licenses, and finally this week she was held in contempt of court and sent to prison. Unfortunately, Davis’ incarceration was just for a couple days and seems to have accomplished absolutely nothing besides adding an orange jumpsuit to her wardrobe and thus making all the inevitable Kim Davis Halloween costumes this year even easier to pull off, because she is still refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and says she will even refuse to allow her deputies to do so.
According to NBC, Davis was sent to prison last week on Thursday for contempt of court because she kept refusing judges’ orders to give people marriage licenses. While she was in prison, five of her six deputy clerks have been giving out marriage licenses to straight and gay couples in Rowan County. (The sixth deputy is Davis’ son, who is also refusing to give marriage licenses to gay couples.) In place of Davis’ signature on the licenses, the deputy clerks have been writing, “Rowan County.”
Because the deputies were happily and effectively doing their jobs, the judge decided to order Davis to be released. He said that because they were giving out the licenses, the Rowan County Clerk’s office was officially doing its job in the eyes of the law. Davis could be free, he said, as long as she allowed the deputies to keep giving out the marriage licenses. Doing so would be a reasonable solution that would make everyone happy and keep Davis out of the public eye, so we probably shouldn’t hold our breath for that to happen. $20 says she orders everyone in her office to stop granting the licenses as soon as she stops hugging Mike Huckabee.
Davis even told the judge that she was going to order her deputies to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses, so it looks like the Saga Farce of Kim is not going to wrap up any time soon. She is going to continue to refuse to issue marriage license to couples who are legally entitled to them and continue to insist that her rights are being violated, instead of admitting that she is the one violating the rights of others. Gay couples in Rowan County are living together and raising children together and they have the legal right to get married if they want to. Davis seems to have forgotten that when she took her oath of office she swore to uphold the Constitution, not the Bible. Maybe she’s just been blinded by all the flashbulbs.
