Turns Outs Christian “God” Less Powerful Than a U.S. Federal Judge

The religious zealot county clerk in the state of Kentucky who has adamantly refused to perform her duties because of her “religious” objections to gay marriage is headed to the slammer for her contumacious refusal to do the job she was elected to public office to perform.

Rowan County clerk Kim Davis is being jailed for contempt of court for refusing Federal court orders to do her job, obey the law of the land, and issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

US District Judge David Bunning decided that mere fines wouldn't have the desired effect of enforcing compliance with his orders. Davis' attempt to appeal the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected by that court after the District Judge's order was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. (Specifically, the Supreme Court refused to stay the order of the lower courts that Clerk Davis issue marriage licenses. The legal principle under which gays are now allowed to marry in America is equal protection of the laws, a key Constitutional doctrine.)

Apparently Bunning's jailing of Davis worked, since her assistant clerks immediately agreed to issue marriage licenses (except for the one clerk who is Davis' son. No nepotism in Rowan County, eh?).

Earlier, Davis was confronted in her office by a male homosexual couple who she'd repeatedly stonewalled in their attempts to obtain a marriage license. They demanded to know “under whose authority” she was refusing to issue marriage licenses. “Under God's authority,” she replied. (This little contretemps has been widely viewed on video.) [1]

So, a judge apparently is more powerful than “God,” right Toots? It would seem undeniable, since now you're going to jail and gays are going to get married in your little backwater part of America.

But wait! One of her backers says “God will punish us,” a sentiment given a megaphone by the dominant local newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal. So the judges had better brace for their comeuppance, I guess.

I'd just like to mention that I have a book that lists 2,500 known “Gods” that people have invented over the millennia. I guess Davis would say that they're all false (i.e., imaginary), except hers.

But back to this business of how her “religious beliefs” are being trampled on. What if “race-mixing” was against her “religious beliefs”? It was a common assertion not too long ago in the U.S. to assert that interracial marriage violated “God's” natural order. (Again, one has to wonder why “God” isn't powerful enough to stop what he doesn't like. Or if something is truly against “natural order,” how could it ever even occur? But that's mere logic. “Faith,” that is, irrational dogma, is always “truer” than mere facts and reason.) In fact, it wasn't until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled state anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. (Laws criminalizing “interracial” marriage. A couple convicted under one of those laws had to take it all the way to the top of the judicial system for that to happen.)

By the way, the very-Holy Davis, an “Apostolic Christian,” has been divorced not once, not twice, but three times.

Gee, I thought marriage was supposed to be a Holy, lifelong sacrament for fanatics like her. Guess she just doesn't like icky gay people.

Oh, she also gave birth to twins out-of-wedlock. Five months after one of her divorces, resulting from her impregnation by a man not her husband.

Davis has been married a total of four times. (She's currently remarried to husband Number Two. In case you give a damn about the personal history of this hypocritical fanatic who imposes her “values” on others.) [2]

Her “Unchristian” divorce-and-“fornication-” habit doesn't faze the bigoted religious primitives of her state, however.

According to polls, a majority of the dumb, backward yokels who inhabit Kentucky support the clerk in her dereliction of duty. Apparently it is beyond their ken that she isn't upholding her religious beliefs, but rather is forcibly imposing them on others. Her rights aren't being violated: she is violating the rights of others. Also too deep for them to grasp is the fact that she is free to resign and seek other employment if the requirements of her job violate her conscience. Unlike members of the U.S. military who are forced to participate in illegal wars of aggression and be parties to various war crimes, she can freely quit and walk away. She won't be court-martialed, imprisoned, subject to any punishment at all. In fact military personnel can't quit or walk away. That constitutes desertion, a serious crime.

Of course, like all religious fanatics, these people think their benighted beliefs should be imposed on others. After all, their “God” says so. How frenzied they are, witnessing the rising tide of “sin” swamping their beloved, God-fearing nation! (Some are even saying publicly this is a sign of the nearing of so-called “End Times.” Which I thought would make them glad. Their saviour, Jesus, will return to earth, and they'll be “raptured” up to paradise. What's their beef?)

Kentucky historically and today is one of the more primitive and backward U.S. states. It is a so-called “border state,” the border in question being the Mason-Dixon line, the division between the South and the rest of the U.S. Kentucky isn't one of the Confederate states that seceded from the U.S. in 1861 and started an ill-advised war by firing on Fort Sumter.

Tennessee, a neighboring “Border State,” has a law on the books banning atheists from running for public office. That flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution as currently interpreted. Which wouldn't spare an atheist the trouble, time, and expense of having to sue in Federal court to be allowed to run for office. Enforcing your “rights” is entirely your burden in America.

David rejected a suggestion by the plaintiff's attorneys (the plaintiffs are gays who had to sue her to get her to allow them to marry) made to the court that Davis needn't be jailed if she would just allow her underlings to issue licenses. But in her mind that would still infringe on her “religious beliefs.” Her “conscience” must be imposed on others. Thus Davis gets to preen as a brave martyr, a victim of persecution just like Jesus Christ Himself, who “saved” her. (From what? From death. Apparently she believes she is now immortal. Like Achilles being dunked in a magic river by his mom when he was just a babe so swords and arrows could not pierce his skin, being “Baptized” in “the blood of the lamb,” a splash of Holy Water, makes one impervious to death. Of course, Achilles' mom miss two spots on her boy's heel, where she was grasping him as she dunked him- which proved his undoing when he caught a poisoned arrow in the heel during the Trojan War. At least according to ancient Greek “history.” )

Religion, for many people, is a way to assert superiority- and power- over others. The most obnoxious, indeed unbearable examples of that today come to us courtesy of Islam. (Warning: Don't you dare practice sorcery in Saudi Arabia! They'll chop your head off. Literally.)

Kim Davis looking busy while refusing to do her job.

Pious Kim practices parting the waters for future Sainthood.

Blessed Kim facing down the media lions, shielded only by her invincible Faith.

Davis heroically holding off the forces of Godless secular humanism: 
“Back, ye accursed Spawn of Satan!”

1] “'Did God Tell You to Treat Us Like This?': Protests Grow over Clerk’s Denial of Same-Sex Marriages,” Democracy Now!, September 3, 2015.

2] “Defiant Kentucky county clerk JAILED for refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples: Jubilant gay rights activists chant 'love won' and clash with her supporters after landmark decision,” Daily Mail (UK), 3 September, 2015.