Kim Davis is back in the news, if only for just a fleeting moment.
The Rowan County, Ky., clerk has won a court fight launched against her by two gay couples and two straight couples who had sued her for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
A federal judge ruled that Kentucky state law has been enacted that removes county clerks’ names from marriage licenses, which Davis and her supporters said protected her religious liberty, as she refused to issue the licenses based on her devotion to her Christian beliefs.
As I see this ruling, it’s a dismissal on a technicality. Rowan no longer has to put her name on these licenses, which in Rowan County are issued by one of her deputies.
This whole case erupted after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage is protected under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Davis decided to make a show of it by refusing to issue the licenses to gay couples — even though she took an oath to uphold the law of the land, the Constitution, and the laws of her state.
Davis has won a court battle. I get that.
She also messed up royally when she refused to fulfill the tenets of the oath she took when she assumed this public office.
Her religious liberty does not supersede the rights of those she has sworn to serve.
The county clerk can thank the Kentucky legislature for giving her room to wiggle her way out.