After being released from jail, the county clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for contempt of court for her refusal to issue marriage licenses following the legalization of marriage between same-sex couples has stated that she will now permit her deputies to issue licenses without her name or authorization printed on them.
NPR notes that one of the clerks in the office, Brian Mason, has issued the licenses as required by his oath of office, and will likely continue to do so.
Will this be the last fight to prevent legal marriage licenses being issued, or do you think this is merely a sign of future conflicts?
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David S. :Thank you for your reply and your kind words about my dad. He truly was an inspiration. In addition to the parishes/missions he served and the missions he started, he always had chaplaincy work. He had a real gift in making people feel at ease in any situation.
Polls show that 63% of the US population think Kim Davis is wrong and that she should do the job she was elected to and issue the licenses in spite of her personal beliefs.
Bro David
Thank you David for the correction! I appreciate you making that clarification. I didn’t mention it in my comment, but my family was invited by the Warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary to attend the annual rodeo that was put on by the inmates and we got to sit with the Warden in his “box”-the only problem was during the rodeo the Warden received word there was a death threat against his life, and we were wisked to a safe location in a matter of seconds!! I will never forget that. In addition I got to go to the leather shop store which was open to the public (after going through security) to buy a small little leather purse which I cherish-the leather shop was operated by the trustees and I still remember visiting with them. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Dunn, was one of my all time favourite teachers. She was a widow-her husband had been the Warden at the Penitentiary but was shot to death in a prison riot. So, I can say first handedly that there is no comparison between being in jail and being in prison-just none! My dad died in 2010 at the age of 93 and I miss him every day. Tremendous person, priest, husband and dad.
I am intimately familiar with the prison system and agree completely; it is distressing, and definitely not comparable to the experience of Davis!
Sounds like your father was a great person & an inspiration! thanks for sharing.
correction on my above article-should read “so, no, she was not in prison”-repeat she was not in prison!
thanks for the correction, Anne! I’m sorry I didn’t make the distinction; I’ve edited the story to correct it.
In this article regarding Kim Davis, it says she was released from prison. She was in the local jail. There is a vast difference between prison and jail, as any inmate or Chaplain will tell you. My dad was the Episcopal Chaplain for eight years to the Oklahoma Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma where I went through elementary school, so I remember him going to the Penitentiary and that is a serious institution. So, no, Davis was in a prison! Since she refused to follow the law and has gone on a rather bizarre tirade the experts in judicial law, the Constitution, Kentucky state law, etc. etc. all have come out in agreement that she has absolutely no case to prevent her from doing her job. Since she makes a rather large salary of $80,000.00 but refuses to do it, I am sure there are hundreds of Kentuckians who would gladly apply for her job. I am not familiar with her particular form of “Christianity”-they said it’s called Apostolic Christian-?- but obviously she has a very limited interpretation of scripture and doesn’t know beans about the Constitution and how our country is set up to be a land of laws which are required to be followed. According to the law, she can practice her religion all she wants to, but she cannot enforce her beliefs on others, which is a short way of describing what she is doing. It’s a little frightful how many people have come out to support her misguided actions-apparently from reading about the people showing up outside the courthouse it’s been described as a circus. A tragic mis-use of the claim of religious rights. These days, I just say I was brought up in the Episcopal Church-I don’t use the word
“Christian” because of the antics of people like Davis.