Time to follow the money
With Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in jail on civil contempt charges for defying a judge's order to resume issuing licenses, deputy clerk Brian Mason ended the office's two-month license ban by politely serving Yates and Smith on Friday, even congratulating them and shaking their hands afterward.Do they think they're scaring people with that line? Do they plan to sue them for living in sin? Do they imagine this is really a 40's madcap comedy (marriage and bigamy are surprisingly common topics in '40's comedies. Somebody oughta do a study....)?
Hours later, however, attorneys for Davis said the marriage licenses issued by her office Friday were void because only Davis has the authority to authorize a marriage license and she refuses to do so.
"They are not being issued under the authority of the Rowan County clerk's office. They are not worth the paper that they are written on," said attorney Mat Staver after meeting with Davis in the Carter County jail in Grayson.
Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins has previously dismissed that argument, saying deputy clerks can issue valid marriage licenses without the approval of their boss.
Marriage equality protesters shouted "Love won!" outside the Rowan County courthouse as Yates and Smith emerged. Across the sidewalk, a crowd of people who support Kim Davis stood mutely, save for one man screaming quotes from the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah.
These are the legal geniuses who lost their case from the trial court to the Supreme Court, and now they threaten not only to appeal the contempt charge (good luck with that, fellas!), but want to put the fear of their God into people coming to Rowan County to get marriage licenses, not all of whom have to be gay (since Davis, for some reason, was refusing to issue any licenses, under the mistaken impression it would protect her from a charge of discrimination.*). And now they think nobody involved in this case, including the federal judge, knows the law of Kentucky except them?
Really, this is just ridiculous now. I'm honestly wondering if the voters of Rowan County want to pay a clerk a salary to sit in jail. That may be the real reason she refuses to quit her job. Wonder if it will become the reason she gets removed from her job?
*Neither federal law nor Kentucky law recognizes homosexuality as a protected class for civil rights purposes, so you can discriminate against homosexuals in Kentucky with abandon. What you can't do is ignore a court order.