| Judge orders Christian clerk freed from jail |
Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who has been jailed since last week for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was ordered released Tuesday by a federal judge, and her attorney promptly assured her supporters that she would not violate her conscience
The order from Judge David L. Bunning came just a few hours before a major rally calling for her freedom.
Bunning also ordered the Rowan County clerk not to interfere when her deputy clerks issue marriage licenses.
But Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, told reporters on hand for the rally that she would continue to adhere to her faith.
Asked whether she would allow her deputies to issue licenses to same-sex couples, he said she would follow her conscience.
Staver said Davis “asked for a very simple accommodation, remove her name and authority from the marriage certificates.’
“That’s what we’ve asked for from the very beginning. We’re asking for that today.”
The deputy clerks have been granting licenses to homosexual and heterosexual couples since Friday. Bunning explained in his order that the deputies had changed the line with Davis’ name on the forms to the name of the county, and no one was complaining about it.
Bunning said he was satisfied the Rowan County clerk’s office is now complying with the recent Supreme Court decision that green-lighted “same-sex marriage.”
Staver, however, noted that the licenses likely are invalid, because the changes were made without the authority of the state of Kentucky. While the Supreme Court invalidated laws limiting marriage to heterosexuals, nothing the court did created new laws under which to operate, critics have argued.
“The court did not resolve the underlying issue,” Staver said. “The judge could act, the governor could act, the legislature could act.”
He said Davis “cannot, will not violate her conscience.”
What does that mean?
“You’ll find out in the near future,” he told reporters.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, standing alongside Staver and Davis at the exit to the jail, said he’s tired of the criminalization of the Christian faith and said he’s “willing to go in her place” if she is ordered back to jail.
“I’m praying there will be remedies that do not involve putting someone in jail for their faith.,” he said.
Staver, in a statement to WND, said the order will allow Davis to restore some normality in her life.
“We are pleased that Kim Davis has been ordered released. She can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell, where she was incarcerated like a common criminal because of her conscience and religious convictions. She is now free to return to her family, her coworkers and the office where she has faithfully served for the past 27 years”
He said Liberty Counsel would “continue to assist Kim and pursue the multiple appeals she has filed.”
Staver previously told NBC News the condition to allow deputy clerks to grant licenses to homosexuals was unlikely to suffice.
“We’re back to square one,” Staver said. “She’s been released, but there’s been no resolution.”
To avoid discrimination, Davis, a Democrat, had refused to issue any marriage licenses.
NBC reported Bunning had threatened further “appropriate sanctions” if she didn’t continued to follow his instructions.
More sanctions are likely, NBC said, because Davis had vowed she would not allow any licenses to be issued from her office, even if she wasn’t the one signing them.
The law in Kentucky requires that her signature be on the licenses.
“She told the court Thursday,” Staver said, “that she can’t allow licenses to go out under her name and her authority that authorize a marriage that collides with her conscience and religious conviction, and Kim is not changed on that position.”
Davis’ lawyers several times have argued that an accommodation can be created so that the licenses do not require her signature, but the judge instead decided to imprison her.
Bunning roped Davis’ deputy clerks into the case last week even though they were not parties, ordering them to issue the licenses under his threat of jail time.
He is demanding status reports every 14 days detailing their compliance with his order.
Bunning previously admitted that the dispute was over a conflict between two constitutional rights – Davis’ enumerated right in the Constitution to free exercise of religion and the Supreme Court’s newly created right of “same-sex marriage.”
Critics have condemned the Supreme Courts ruling on marriage in June as being as faulty as the Dred Scott case that affirmed slavery.
Davis’ lawyers, with Liberty Counsel, had just filed an emergency motion with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals charging that the judge, Bunning, had created a criminal contempt case against the clerk without notifying her and had violated her rights to due process by jailing her.
They noted that Bunning himself seemed uncertain whether or not licenses issued without Davis would be valid.
The attorneys suggested the case makes it look as though Bunning “sought to vindicate [his] own authority and punish Davis for past actions.”
“Thus, Davis is entitled to heightened due process, which she did not receive,” the filing explained.
Bunning also violated the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act by jailing Davis, the attorneys told the 6th Circuit.
“It is not for the district court or any court to question the reasonableness or scriptural accuracy of Davis’ beliefs about marriage, to which she testified at the contempt hearing,” they said. “Indeed, judges should not determine whether Davis’ religious beliefs are ‘mistaken’ or ‘insubstantial.’ … Instead, the ‘narrow function’ … in this context is to determine whether the line drawn reflects ‘an honest conviction.’”
Giving her the choice of violating her beliefs or going to jail certainly “burdens” her religious faith, they wrote.
“Moreover, the compelling government interest inquiry, which the district court omitted in its contempt order, ‘requires the government to demonstrate that the compelling interest test is satisfied through application of the challenged law ‘to the person’ – the particular claimant whose sincere exercise of religions is being substantially burdened,’” they said.
Davis has received support from some Republican presidential candidates, including Huckabee.
As an elected official, she could be removed from office only by the legislature, which doesn’t meet until winter.
Huckabee earlier criticized the judge for a decision that “undermines the Constitution.”
Even before the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, in which five lawyers decided to redefine marriage, Davis had written to lawmakers asking them to address the issue and protect clerks who had a religious objection to same-sex marriage.
The Kentucky Clerks Association also recommend that the names of clerks be removed from the forms, Staver revealed.
The Supreme Court’s decision was criticized by Chief Justice John Roberts as having no constitutional foundation. Deciding votes also were cast by two justices, Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg, who publicly had advocated for same-sex marriage while the case was before the court. They refused demands that they recuse themselves from the case.
The case illustrates the unwillingness of many Americans to accept the Supreme Court’s imposition of “gay marriage.”
WND reported when James Dobson, the high-profile Christian commentator, author and broadcaster, warned the U.S. Supreme Court before it created same-sex marriage that it was about to constitutionalize sin.
He said the case ultimately isn’t about marriage. Fundamentally, he contends, it’s a way to open up vast new avenues to attack Christianity.
Dobson, who founded the highly influential groups Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, and now runs Family Talk. charged in his monthly newsletter that the Supreme Court’s decision was “an expression of hostility toward people who take their Christianity seriously.”
He said the decision by five justices will prove disastrous for America.
His view is supported by the four dissenting justices, who argued the decision had no connection to the U.S. Constitution and likely will be used to attack Christians.
Dobson wrote: “We are convinced that this unconstitutional decision, issued by five unelected, unaccountable and imperious justices, will ultimately prove to be as catastrophic as Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857 and Roe v. Wade in 1973. It will touch every dimension of culture.”
He said the decision is not about same-sex marriage, except only tangentially.
“Many gay and lesbian groups have admitted that marriage has never been their primary objective. Instead, it is about everything else,” he wrote.
“What’s at stake is the entire culture war.”
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