Kentucky clerk Kim Davis released from jail

[WestVirginiaRebel]

CBS News:

GRAYSON, Ky. - Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis was ordered released from jail Tuesday by the judge who locked her up for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

 

Davis exited the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Kentucky just after 2:30 p.m. She had been there since Thursday.

 

Hundreds of supporters sang "Amazing Grace" and "God Bless America" as her lawyer spoke to the crowd and news outlets gathered outside.

 

U.S. District Judge David Bunning on Tuesday lifted the contempt order against Davis, saying he was satisfied that her deputies are fulfilling their obligation to grant licenses to same-sex couples in her absence. But he warned Davis not to interfere with them, saying, "If Defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this Order and appropriate sanctions will be considered."

 

Davis' lawyer, Mat Staver, of Liberty Counsel, a Christian law firm, refused to say whether Davis would obey that order.

 

"Kim Davis cannot and will not violate her conscience," Staver said outside the jail, adding that Davis will return to work this week.

________

 

Free, for now.

[Valin]

Accommodate Conscientious Objectors to Same-Sex Marriage

The Editors

September 9, 2015

 

Kim Davis is out of jail, but she never should have been there to begin with.

 

In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court required all states to recognize same-sex marriage, putting Mrs. Davis, head clerk of Rowan County, Ky., in a difficult position. In Kentucky, marriage licenses bear the name and invoke the authority of the head county clerk, making Mrs. Davis, in her view, a participant in a union to which she objects on religious principle. One day after the Court’s ruling, she stopped issuing marriage licenses entirely. A lawsuit followed, charging her with violating the law as interpreted under the Supreme Court’s ruling. A federal court directed her to issue all licenses, notwithstanding her objections. When she refused, U.S. District Judge David Bunning held her in contempt of court, and, rejecting several less spectacular alternatives, ordered her to jail. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal.

 

The sequence of events that led to Mrs. Davis’s imprisonment was predictable and entirely avoidable. The Supreme Court’s decision to assume to itself the ability to redefine marriage circumvented the legislative process by which accommodations for conscientious objections could have been developed. By redefining the responsibilities of public officials such as Mrs. Davis without offering protections of conscience, the Court foreordained clashes such as this.

 

States can and should find ways to accommodate public officials with religious objections to facilitating same-sex marriages. The United States has a long history of accommodating conscientious objectors, among them public officials. The coercive binary on offer from Ms. Davis’s critics — that she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples or resign — is a false choice.

 

(Snip)