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Anti-gay marriage US clerk appeals jail ruling

By AFP
07 September 2015   |   7:52 am
The US clerk who was sent to jail this week for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses is appealing the ruling that landed her in prison, her lawyer said Sunday. Kim Davis, a born-again Christian, has been in jail since Thursday in Kentucky for contempt of court after refusing to issue the licenses due to…
kim-davis

kim Davis

The US clerk who was sent to jail this week for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses is appealing the ruling that landed her in prison, her lawyer said Sunday.

Kim Davis, a born-again Christian, has been in jail since Thursday in Kentucky for contempt of court after refusing to issue the licenses due to her opposition to gay marriage, which the US Supreme Court legalized across the United States in June.

The Rowan County clerk made headlines for insisting it was against her religious beliefs to do so.

“While most Americans are enjoying the extended holiday weekend with family and friends, Kim Davis sits in isolation for the fourth day in jail,” her lawyer Mat Staver said Sunday, one day ahead of US Labor Day.

“We are working through the holiday to secure Kim’s freedom,” he said in a statement, which included a link to the appeal.

While US District Judge David Bunning has said Davis can be released as soon as she agrees to issue marriage licenses to anyone who qualifies, as her position requires, or resigns from that position. She can be held indefinitely if she refuses to do so.

Her attorney has previously said she has no intention to resign or to “violate her conscience and betray her God.”

Rowan County handed out its first certificate to a same-sex couple on Friday.

10 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    Let us be clear here Ms Davis is not a martyr to the Christian faith. She is being a bigot and a hypocrite. She is also an oath breaker. Yes she swore a solemn oath to support the constitution of the United States of America without any caveats. She is refusing to issue marriage licences to straight and gay couples within her county. Well she deems it to be her fiefdom. She is happy to draw a paycheque from the state, but refuses to fulfil her role. She has been ordered to issue marriage licences by the governor of Kentucky her boss and still she refuses to. She epitomises recalcitrance. Tell me how long any employee would last in the private sphere if they did not do their job. She would be fired immediately. The state Kentucky can not fire her as she is an elected official, but it is incumbent now on Kentucky legislature to impeach her. America is a secular society, you leave your religious biases at home when you go to work. She is in gaol not for her beliefs but she is in contempt of court. Ms Davis had a number of options she could have elected to use: 1. she could have delegated the role to deputy clerks who have no objections to issue marriage licences. The second option she had was to resign if she felt so strongly about the cause. imagine what would happen to the civil service in Nigeria or any country if public servants refused to fulfil their job roles based on personal beliefs. There would be anarchy and a breakdown of the state. Be under no illusion this was a calculated political move by the Liberty Counsel to foment division in the USA. When Ms Davis does leave gaol there will be a lucrative career for her. Interviews, seminars, speaking circuits and maybe a book. She will become rich from this recalcitrance.

    • Author’s gravatar

      Just as I advised your fellow commentator, please can you guys remove (1) Freedom of Worship from your Constitution, and (2) “In God we Trust” From your Currency? It will make more sense for your God forsaken Country.

      • Author’s gravatar

        Dear Fred. There is no attack on freedom of worship. This woman is a federal employee refusing to fulfil her duties which swore unto God she would( support the constitution). She was totally intransigent, and refused to delegate that authority to other people who were prepared to do so. She was itching for a fight. This was purely political. She is out of gaol now, and doing just that permitting her deputies to perform weddings and she can not interfere with them doing it.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Dear America and all who are blind to the basis of our Freedoms! It is this exact situation in which we as a nation are and have the original declaration! That Church and State must be separate entities and therefore as an employee of the State, she must follow those rules no matter what her Faith, Belief or personal judgment may be! Congradulations to all who were awarded their licenses for marriage! These are what defines us as The United States of America!!

  • Author’s gravatar

    Jaime and Patrick, you both are absolutely correct! This Kim is very foolish – just like many Christians who claim to be born-again! Being born-again confers wisdom, it endues wisdom, and it imbues wisdom! And this gross deficit on the part of Kim Davis proves the lie in their claim of being born-again. Yes, it is a misappropriation of the God-given endowment to a selected few!

    Kim is foolish because she had the option of resigning instead of carrying out an official duty which would offend her religious belief. And for not resigning and yet disobeying the court order, she fell short of the Christian standard of obeying State authorities. And Kim Davis can also be described as one of the lawless ones. She is a foolish zealot.

    Kim will do well to always take to heart the injunction by Christ to be wise as a serpent but as harmless as the dove. For not remembering the truths they had been taught and not applying them, the Galatians probably acted in ways similar to Kim’s, thus warranting the apostle Paul’s rebuke – “O, foolish ….” (Mtt 10:16, Lk 16:8, Gal 3:1) Kim Davis neither deserves applause for her “over-righteous” action, nor sympathy for languishing in jail as punishment for disobeying State authorities. (Eccl. 7:16)

  • Author’s gravatar

    It is unfortunate that a once envied United State Of America who once trust in God has now become a shamble and shame.Can you imagine, men marrying men publicly , men turning themselves to women and women turning into men, what a confusion. Posterity will not forgive the adminstration of Barack Obama under whose watch all this evil unfording. and those judges who legalised guy marriage would also be judge by incoming generation

    • Author’s gravatar

      I can she how power Americans Evangelical protestant sects have in Nigeria from that comment. Posterity will remember Barack Obama as a great leader1. one for extricating itself from a disastrous war, 2, for dealing with social issues, i.e. obamacare that brought health care to the poor 3. One who turned around a stagnant economy 4. As a great civil rights campaigner.