Kim Davis and Conservative Claims to “Religious Liberty” (2015)

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Something inappropriate may this way come later in the program. Go into the chapel and we're gonna get mad. We are job, we are job, we are job, we are job, we are job. An equality -resistant county clerk in Kentucky is getting her 15 minutes of fame. Here's This Way Out, Solution Chappelle. Growing county Kentucky clerk Kim Davis is in the headlines, and in jail, after refusing a district court order to issue civil marriage licenses to lesbian and gay couples. The professed born again Christian claims that God's authority supersedes the U .S. Supreme Court's June marriage equality ruling. Davis says that defying the ruling was a choice between heaven and hell. Pacific Radio News anchor Mark Miracle covered the September 3rd events. A defiant county clerk went to jail today for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. But five or deputies agreed to issue the licenses themselves, potentially ending the church state standoff in row in

county Kentucky. I just want you all to know that we are not issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. Why? What appeal is left? Ending the appeal in the sick market. What appeal in the sick is being denied. Right, the induction is the order that you're supposed to issue marriage licenses. The Supreme Court denies your say. We are not issuing marriage licenses today. Based on what? Why are you not issuing marriage licenses today? Because I'm not. Why? His authority. And the God's authority. U .S. District Judge David Bunning said he had no choice but to jailed Kim Davis for contempt. After she insisted that her conscience will not allow her to follow federal court rulings on gay marriage, God's moral law conflicts with my job duties. Davis told the judge before she was taken away by a U .S. marshal. You can't be separated from something that's in your heart and in your soul. Judge Bunning offered to release Davis if she would promise not to

interfere with her employees issuing marriage licenses. But Davis threw her attorneys rejected that offer and chose to stay in jail. Gay and lesbian couples vowed to appear the row in county clerk's office for the fifth time tomorrow to see if the deputy clerks would keep their promises. As word of Davis's jailing spread outside the federal court house, hundreds of people chanted and screamed, love wins, love wins, while Davis's supporters booed. Hey, hey. Move out. Kim Davis is not to go. Hey. Move out. Kim Davis is not to go. Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Jill. Thank you, Jill. The wages of sin is death. That is spiritual death. On you homosexuals are separated from God by your sin. You're spiritually dead at your sins and trespasses. Davis's lawyer said it was the first time in history an American citizen has been jailed for believing that marriage is a

union between one man and one woman. He compared her willingness to accept imprisonment to what Martin Luther King Jr. did to advance civil rights. Davis is represented by the Liberty Council, which advocates in court for religious freedom. The issue was that from the time she began marriage has always been one thing and it's been between a man and a woman. Matt Staver. Two months ago that changed and so the job duties changed. The fact of the matter is that she has a right to have her faith accommodated, her convictions accommodated. Supreme Court has never said that your right requires someone to actually participate in your particular conviction or your belief or your activity. Before she was let away, Davis said the U .S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same -sex marriage nationwide, complex with a vows that she made when she became a born again Christian. That report by Pacific Radio's Mark Miracle. While Davis sat in jail, all her deputies began issuing civil marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples on September 4th. All that is except

her own son, Nathan. The judge is apparently not penalizing him for his non -compliance. On his radio show this week, the Family Research Council's Brian Fisher compared Davis to World War II Nazi resistors and U .S. abolitionists. Think about Dred Scott 1857. They said the Negro has no rights that the white man is bound to respect. Fugitive slave law, you find a fugitive slave in a free state. You got to capture him, you got to apprehend him, you got to take him to custody, and you got to send him back home to his slave master. What would we think if you had a lower court judge a magistrate in, let's say, in Wisconsin that said, you know, I'm not going to sign that warrant. You want me to sign a warrant to go kidnap or capture a fugitive slave and return his slavery? I'm not going to do it. Even though the Supreme Court says that that Negro has no rights. I think we would regard that guy today as a hero, and that's how I look at Kim Davis. Evan Wolfson of the victoriously

retiring advocacy group Freedom to Mary would bet to differ with Brian Fisher's analysis as Wolfson told MSNBC. This is not a question of religious freedom. She has religious freedom. No one's telling her what to believe, what to think, what to do, but she took an oath to do a job. In fact, she draws an $80 ,000 a year taxpayer salary to do a job. If she doesn't feel she can do the job, consistent with her conscience, she is free to resign. She has been given an order by a federal judge. She tested that order all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld what this judge instructed her to do. The judge brought her back into court to give her a chance to comply with the law. She deliberately chose to defy that law and indeed tried to interfere with her deputies performing on it. This is an attempt to create a drama under this banner of religious freedom. But what it's really about is an attempt to subvert the law and to flout civil rights and undermine civil rights. And it's completely intolerable, particularly in a government employee. Rubble rousing activist

Kim Davis and Conservative Claims to “Religious Liberty” (2015)

The Obergefell decision unambiguously affirmed marriage rights for LGBTQ+ people. But what if individuals believed that same-sex marriage was in conflict with their personal religious beliefs? Could the government require them to recognize a same-sex union? This 2015 episode of This Way Out, a weekly radio magazine show on LGBTQ+ issues, explores the first prominent religious liberty controversy after Obergefell. In July 2015, Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses because she claimed doing so represented a violation of her First Amendment right to religious liberty. Multiple courts decided against Davis, holding that a person’s religious convictions did not absolve them from fulfilling their legally mandated job responsibilities as a state employee. As you can hear in the report, Davis defenders portrayed her as a principled defender of religious liberty, while her detractors argued that she was discriminating in defiance of the law. These debates over religious liberty exemptions would continue in the courts and in political discourse in the coming years, as many Christian business owners (such as florists and bakers) argued they should not be required to provide their services for gay weddings.

This Way Out | This Way Out Radio : Los Angeles, CA | September 7, 2015 This audio clip and associated transcript appear from 10:40 - 16:52 in the full record.

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