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Revealed: These Are The Kim Davises Across The Country The Media Won’t Talk About
Kim Davis does not stand alone. From Kentucky to Oregon, local officials are drawing a line in the sand as they refrain from either performing same-sex marriages or issuing licenses for them.
“I don’t believe that by taking the oath as a judge, that I somehow set aside my First Amendment civil liberties and that as a judge I’m a lesser species of protection,” said Marion County, Ore., Circuit Judge Vance Day. Day is now the subject of an ethics investigation for his refusal to perform same-sex marriages, Patrick Korten, a spokesman for the judge, said Thursday.
Day stopped performing marriages of any kind this spring after same-sex marriage became legal in Oregon, and ordered his staff to refer couples to other judges, Korten said.
Day has never performed a same-sex marriage because of “deeply held religious beliefs,” Korten said. “He has a right to those beliefs under the United States Constitution.”
“Are we going to treat a refusal to perform gay weddings as a legitimate public position? Or are we going to redefine it as racist hatred and bigotry unbefitting a judge?” pondered Maggie Gallagher in her National Review commentary on Day’s case.
“Judge Vance Day is the next Kim Davis in the sense that he is being asked by the complainants to violate his conscience and perform gay weddings or face sanctions that would threaten his job and livelihood. Let’s hope he is the next Kim Davis in another sense too: that we emerge from this case with another victory for liberty, common sense, and, yes, compassion and tolerance. May he keep his conscience and his job,” Gallagher wrote.
Elsewhere, resistance to performing gay marriages is emerging.
In North Carolina, all four magistrates in rural McDowell County stopped performing civil wedding ceremonies for any couples. Their moves are allowed under a state law passed in June that allows certain public officials to avoid marriage duties if they have religious objections.
In Alabama, about a half-dozen county probate judges, who oversee issuing licenses, won’t give them to any couples, said Greg Norris, the Monroe County probate judge and president of the Alabama Probate Judges Association.
“By not issuing licenses to anyone, I’m not discriminating against anyone,” said Judge Nick Williams, the Washington County judge who stopped issuing licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. Under Alabama law, probate judges “may” issue licenses, but aren’t obligated to do so.
In Kentucky, Casey Davis, no relation to Kim Davis, is refusing to issue licenses and said he would risk jail to uphold his religious convictions.
Accepting imprisonment “to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law,” he said
h/t: Wall Street Journal
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/revealed-these-are-the-kim-davises-across-the-country-the-media-wont-talk-about/
