HUCKABEE OFFERS UP EXPLAINATION WHY KIM DAVIS CAN DISCRIMINATE

Extreme right wing nut job Mike Huckabee has been the most vocal supporter of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriages licenses. He has said he would go to jail on her behalf and has used her situation to argue for strengthening “religious liberty.” But during Wednesday night’s GOP debate, he proved he doesn’t actually understand the meaning of religious freedom.

In response to a question about Davis during the debate, Huckabee argued that she should be allowed to exercise her religious beliefs and discriminate against same-sex couples because the United States has allowed others, including prisoners, to exercise their own religious beliefs.

“We made accommodation to the Fort Hood shooter to let him grow a beard,” Huckabee said. “We made accommodations to the detainees at Gitmo — I’ve been to Gitmo and I’ve seen the accommodations that we have to the Muslim detainees who killed Americans. You’re telling me that you cannot make an accommodation for an elected Democrat county clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky?”

He continued, alleging the only difference is the “criminalization of her faith.”





The First Amendment guarantees Americans the freedom to practice their religions, but does not guarantee someone the right to discriminate and deny other people their rights because of his or her religion.

Davis was released from jail last week and returned to work — she has said she will not interfere with her deputies as they issue same-sex marriage licences.

Huckabee made a similar false comparison in an op-ed he published in Fox News in which he argued that Davis should be allowed out on bail because “many of the America’s most evil and notorious serial killers, murderers, rapists, mafia bosses and presidential assassins were actually let out on bail.” He went on to list Al Capone, Ted Bundy, and Jack Kevorkian, among others, without acknowledging that none of them were held in contempt of court like Davis.

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WING-NUT HUCKABEE IF ELECTED WOULD DEFY COURT AS WELL

Wing-Nut Mike Huckabee said on Sunday that U.S. citizens only have to follow court orders if judges get “it right,” and that he would follow his conscience as president even if it meant the type of jail time Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis is serving.

Speaking with host George Stephanopolous, the GOP presidential candidate claimed court orders only become binding upon citizens when state or federal legislatures take the ruling and codify it into law.

Huckabee — who has hitched his fading star of a campaign to the fortunes of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who is currently sitting in jail for contempt after refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples — explained that there is no specific law Davis should have been following.

“George, can you cite for me what statute Kim Davis would be required follow in order to issue a same-sex marriage license in Kentucky when her state specifically says, by 75 percent of the voters, that marriage means one man, one woman?” Huckabee asked. “Can you cite the statute at the federal or state level that she’s supposed to follow? Even the very form that she fills out specifically lists a male and a female. Does she have the authority just to scratch that out and create her own?”

“Doesn’t she have to the duty to obey a legal order from the court?” Stephanopolous pressed.

“Well, you obey it if it’s right. So I go back to my question. Is slavery the law of the land?” Huckabee attempted as way of an explanation. “Should it have been the law of the land because Dred Scott said so? Was that a correct decision? Should the courts have been irrevocably followed on that? Should Lincoln have been put in jail? Because he ignored it.”

Turning to presidents following their conscience, Stephanopolous played a clip of President John F. Kennedy in 1960 stating: “When if the time should ever come and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible, when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.”



“Would you make that same statement in your candidacy for president?” the host asked Huckabee.

“I can’t see any circumstance in which I would be required to violate my conscience and — and the law,” Huckabee conceded before adding, “And if so, I think maybe there is a point at which you say either I’ll resign or put me in jail.”

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KIM DAVIS, KENTUCKY CLERK SUFFERS FROM SABS

KENTUCKY CLERK AND SABS SUFFERER KIM DAVIS

Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who has staged a weeks-long campaign of resistance to marriage equality, came under fire from an unexpected source on Tuesday — the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Davis, who suffers from the hypocritical Christian disease - which allows ignoramuses like Davis to invoke SABS [Selective Application of the Bible Syndrome] while on the job. Davis a three time divorcee; on her fourth marriage, two kids out of wedlock, and once again, refused yesterday to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couple despite a recent order from the Supreme Court denying her request for a temporary stay enabling her to ignore the Constitution. Just a few hours later, a federal judge ordered her to appear in court this Thursday, where she is likely to be held in contempt.

RELATED: Dan Savage destroys thrice-divorced Kim Davis: ‘This is about someone hypocritically cashing in’

According to Ryan Anderson, Heritage’s most visible anti-gay voice, Davis is indeed wrong to refuse to issue marriage licenses altogether in order to spite same-sex couples who wish to marry. “The citizens of Rowan County have a right to receive in a timely and efficient manner the various government provisions—including licenses—to which they are entitled,” Anderson writes for one of Heritage’s websites.

He adds, in an argument that closely maps criticisms of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, that “saying your religion requires your entire office to stop issuing marriage licenses to everyone . . . cannot be reasonably accommodated without placing undue hardships on the citizens unable to receive their licenses in their county and forced to drive to another.”

Anderson’s solicitude for the Constitution, it should be noted, only goes so far. He devotes much of his piece denouncing Davis to an alternative proposal that permits individual state officials to recuse from issuing licenses to same-sex couples while also “mak[ing] clear that no one can be denied a marriage license.”

This proposal is unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court explained in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Constitution “does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.” So if an opposite-sex couple will be served by whichever clerk happens to be on duty when they arrive seeking a marriage license, a same-sex couple must be allowed to obtain a license on the same terms.

Nevertheless, the fact that this prominent anti-gay luminary believes that Davis has gone off the deep end - is a sign of just how off the reservation this lunatic is.

Kim Davis, you are today’s asshat and worst person of the world. Congrats numbnuts!

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THIRD TIME NOT A CHARM

A gay couple in Kentucky was denied a marriage license for a third time by a defiant county clerk.

James Yates and William Smith Jr. went Thursday morning to the Rowan County Courthouse to seek a license to be married but found that County Clerk Kim Davis still was refusing to issue them one as she fights federal court orders, reported the Courier-Journal.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday slapped down the latest challenge filed by Davis, with help and encouragement from the conservative Liberty Counsel, ruling that county clerks are obligated to follow the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and not their own personal beliefs.

VIDEO BELOW IS OF SECOND DENIAL




Yates and Smith, who have attempted to obtain a marriage license each time the clerk is dealt a legal setback, were told by an apologetic deputy clerk that Davis believes a previous stay granted by a judge remains in effect until Aug. 31 despite the appeals court ruling.

“Sorry, guys,” the deputy clerk says in video recorded during the attempt.

“It’s just making us want to press more,” Yates said. “She can’t get away with this.”

The couple said they would return next week and ask for a marriage license a fourth time.

Davis has twice denied David Moore and David Ermold, another gay couple from Rowan County, a marriage license.

Another defiant county clerk, from Casey County, suggested this week he was willing to be jailed or killed for refusing to follow the law.

“If it takes it, I will go to jail over — if it takes my life, I will die for because I believe I owe that to the people that fought so I can have the freedom that I have,” said Casey Davis, the Casey County clerk.
 

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FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

Texas pastor who thundered that he would “Burn, if necessary” to stop the Supreme Court from legalizing gay marriage, claims he was only quoting from an old spiritual and that he has no intention on setting himself on fire, reports the Advocate.

In — literally — a ‘fire and brimstone‘ proclamation, Pastor Rick Scarborough said he and his fellow pastors should band together to halt the growing threat of same sex marriage, saying, “We are not going to bow, we are not going to bend, and if necessary, we will burn.”

Twenty-four hours after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage, Scarborough explained that he wasn’t really going to set himself on fire — he was just using the words of a Christian spiritual to rally the troops.

“I made that comment to paraphrase a spiritual song, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in which the three were given a choice—to bow to the image of Nebucahdnezzar or burn in a furnace,” Scarborough explained .” ‘We will burn’ means that we will accept any sanction from the government for resisting [Friday’s] Supreme Court decision. We do not support any violence or physical harm.”

In Scarborough’s earlier speech, he also said:

 “The preachers need to get out front, the leaders need to get out front, in front of these ordinary citizens and say, ‘Shoot me first.'”

Scarborough did elaborate on whether there would be a march against gay marriage and his comments condemning “violence or physical harm,” would seem to indicate that he may be no more willing to take a bullet for traditional marriage than he was to set himself on fire.

Just like a Conservative Family Values Christian, never can tell the truth and never ever follow through with their threats




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Roger West

RBG BLISTERS THOSE AGAINST MARRIAGE EQUALITY

During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court, several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past. As Justice Antonin Scalia summed up this argument, “for millennia, not a single society” supported marriage equality, and that somehow exempted same-sex couples from the Constitution’s promise of equal protection of the law.

Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences:

[Same-sex couples] wouldn't be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. I mean, it wasn't possible. Same-sex unions would not have opted into the pattern of marriage, which was a relationship, a dominant and a subordinate relationship. Yes, it was marriage between a man and a woman, but the man decided where the couple would be domiciled; it was her obligation to follow him. 

There was a change in the institution of marriage to make it egalitarian when it wasn’t egalitarian. And same-sex unions wouldn't — wouldn't fit into what marriage was once.

Justice Ginsburg’s point was that, until surprisingly recently, the legal institution of marriage was defined in terms of gender roles. According to Sir William Blackstone, an eighteenth century English jurist whose works are still frequently cited today to explain the common law principles we inherited from our former colonial rulers, “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.” As late as 1887, fully one third of the states did not permit women to control their earnings. And married women could not even withhold consent to sex with their husband until shockingly recently.

Under the common law, “by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given herself up in this kind unto her husband,” and this consent was something “she cannot retract.” The first successful prosecution in the United States of a husband who raped his wife did not occur until the late 1970s.

So American marriage law, and the English law that it was derived from, presumed that the wife was both financially and sexual subservient to the husband. In a world where marriage is defined as a union between a dominant man and a submissive woman, each fulfilling unique gender roles, the case for marriage discrimination is clear. How can both the dominant male role and the submissive female role be carried out in a marital union if the union does not include one man and one woman? This, according to Justice Ginsburg, is why marriage was understood to exclude same-sex couples for so many centuries.

But marriage is no longer bound to antiquated gender roles. And when those gender roles are removed, the case for marriage discrimination breaks down.

Generally speaking, any argument based on "we've always done it this way" seldom works. If "we've always done it this way" – it was some sort of rule we had to follow - we'd still have slavery, women would still not be permitted to vote, businesses could still post "No Irish Need Apply" signs - and yet there would still be separate drinking fountains for different races of people. In fact, it would be difficult to get any new laws passed at all.

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“HOMOSEXUALITY MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM”

WING NUT SALLY KERN OF OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma is currently one of the most conservative states to have marriage equality (Alabama just got a two-week delay in holding that title). Same-sex couples are carefully beginning to exercise their new right, like Tracy Curtis and Kathryn Frazier, whose anxiety over every wedding invitation was thoughtfully profiled by the Washington Post this weekend. But conservative lawmakers have expressed their interest in circumventing that freedom to marry in several creative ways.

State Rep. Sally Kern is leading that charge. She infamously insists that homosexuality is “more dangerous” than terrorism, and has attempted to make a martyr of herself over the backlash for saying so. Last week, she filed three separate bills designed to circumvent equality for the LGBT community by either licensing discrimination or outright promoting harm.

Her first bill, HB 1597, specifically empowers businesses to refuse service to the LGBT community. Unlike the slew of bills in other states that use “religious freedom” language to create a carve-out for anti-LGBT discrimination, Kern’s bill explicitly identifies LGBT people: “No business entity shall be required to provide any services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges related to any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person, group or association.” This bill may be the most blatant “license to discriminate” of any legislation recently proffered by conservative lawmakers across the country.

While several states are considering following the lead of California and New Jersey in banning ex-gay therapy for minors — so that the harmful, ineffective treatment cannot be forced upon them by unaccepting parents — Kern takes the opposite approach. HB 1598 would create the “Freedom to Obtain Conversion Therapy Act,” insisting, “The people of this state have the right to seek and obtain counseling or conversion therapy from a mental health provider in order to control or end any unwanted sexual attraction, and no state agency shall infringe upon that right.” This includes minors, as the bill specifically empowers parents to obtain ex-gay therapy for their children “without interference by the state.”

Lastly, Kern wants to try to prevent couples like Tracy and Kathryn from getting married even though federal courts have guaranteed them that right. Her third bill, HB 1599 (the so-called “Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act”), borrows directly from similar legislation proposed in Texas to prevent government employees from receiving a salary if they issue a same-sex marriage license. “No taxpayer funds or governmental salaries shall be paid for any activity that includes the licensing or support of same-sex marriage,” the bill declares. Not only would clerks lose their salary, pension, and benefits, but any judge who issued a same-sex marriage license “shall be removed from office.”

Kern is not alone in trying to block marriage equality at the clerk level. State Rep. Todd Russ has proposed a bill (HB 1125) that would no longer allow clerks or judges to even officiate marriages anymore. If couples do not have a formal ceremony with a religious leader, they would have to file an affidavit of common law marriage instead, and they would never actually receive a marriage certificate. Russ, himself a credentialed Assemblies of God minister, told The Oklahoman that though he joins many Oklahomans in opposing same-sex marriage, “the Supreme Court stuck it down our throats,” but “marriages are not supposed to be a government thing anyway.”

It’s unclear whether lawmakers are willing to get behind these bills that clearly target the LGBT community for harm, discrimination, and unequal access to government services, nor whether they would be upheld in a federal court. Republicans do enjoy supermajorities in both the Oklahoma House and Senate, so passage cannot be ruled out.

Congratulations Sally Kern, you are today's dual award winner. The coveted asshat and worst person in the world are yours today. 

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Roger West

SCOTUS Punts Appeals From Five States, Clearing Way For Same-Sex Marriage

KU KLUX KOURT PUNTS ON SAME SEX MARRIAGE RULING

BREAKING:

This rejection lets three federal appeals decisions take effect, legalizing same-sex marriage in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected calls for a nationwide ruling on same-sex marriage, a rebuff that lets gays marry in as many as 11 new states and leaves legal uncertainty elsewhere.

The denial today of seven pending appeals defied predictions. Advocates on both sides had urged the justices to resolve the issue following a wave of lower court rulings that the Constitution guarantees same-sex marriage rights.

The rejection lets three federal appeals decisions take effect, legalizing same-sex marriage in Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana. Six other states -- Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina -- will likely follow because they fall under the jurisdiction of those appellate courts.

Those additions will bring the number of gay-marriage states to 30, plus the District of Columbia.

As a practical matter, however, this decision, to not to hear these cases is an earthquake for gay rights. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, refused to issue a stay halting its order favoring marriage equality. Although the Supreme Court later stepped in with its own stay order, that order provides that the Supreme Court’s stay will “terminate automatically” if the Supreme Court denies review of the case. Now that the justices have done so, there should be no further legal barriers preventing marriages from beginning in those five states — although it is possible that there may be some delay before marriages may begin due to procedural steps that need to be taken by the judiciary.

One thing that should be noted is that there are still marriage equality cases pending before conservative circuits that could rule against equality. Nevertheless, the fact that marriages are likely to begin very shortly in the states currently subject to court orders will make it very difficult for the Supreme Court to reverse course — and retroactively invalidate those marriages — in a subsequent opinion.

RELATED: Virginia same sex marriages to begin later today

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IMPEACH MARK HERRING

Says radical tea bagger Bob Marshall.

Virginia Del. Bob Marshall is a longtime opponent of LGBT equality, and he’s now calling for the impeachment of Attorney General Mark Herring , primarily for his refusal to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. Marshall filed the resolutions seeking an inquiry for Herring’s impeachment last week, but in a new email to supporters, he outlined his reasons for doing so. “Removing all standards against same sex or sodomy ‘marriage,’” he explained, is “to the detriment of children and the well-being of society.”

According to Marshall, “Mark Herring’s actions constitute a radical structural alteration in our representative form of government.” In addition to objections that Herring has chosen not to defend the state’s marriage ban, a decision that is not unprecedented, Marshall also claims he “usurped legislative authority” by inviting undocumented immigrants (DREAMers) to pay in-state tuition rates at Virginia state school.

Marshall’s attacks include something that Herring did not actually even do. According to the email alert, Herring publicly announced that he is allowing same-sex couples to file joint tax returns, but Herring has made no such announcement. Just before leaving office, Herring’s predecessor Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion specifically banning recognition of same-sex couples’ marital status for income tax returns. The opinion illuminates a conflict between Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and state law requiring that taxes be collected at the state level in the same way that they are at the federal level, which would require recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages. Though Gov. Terry McAuliffe is investigating reversing this precedent, Herring has not issued a contradicting opinion of his own.

In the email, Marshall also extended a threat to impeach judges who might overturn bans on same-sex marriage. Rulings based on the 14th Amendment’s equal protection “make no sense,” he argued, because when that Amendment was ratified, “sodomy was a felony in nearly every state.”

A long reputation of anti-gay comments precedes Marshall’s impeachment attempts. In 2012, he opposed the appointment of openly gay Judge Tracy Thorne-Begland because “sodomy is not a civil right.” In a 2011 letter attacking Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley  for supporting marriage equality, Marshall compared homosexuality to pedophilia, prostitution, polygamy, necrophilia, and bestiality. He believes that homosexuality is a “disordered behavior” and after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” he tried to ban “active homosexuals” from joining the Virginia National Guard.

As of publication, Marshall’s public petition to rally support for Herring’s impeachment has garnered 110 signatures, one of the most recent of which was from “FuckYou Bob.”

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MICHIGAN JUDGE OVERTURNS SAME SEX MARRIAGE BAN

A federal judge has overturned Michigan’s constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage. In the decision, Judge Bernard Friedman, a Regan appointee, argued that this is a case about people’s equal protection, lauding the couple that brought the case for the sacrifices they've made to raise their children:

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may no longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples. It is the Court’s fervent hope that these children will grow up “to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” Today’s decision is a step in that direction, and affirms the enduring principle that regardless of whoever finds favor in the eyes of the most recent majority, the guarantee of equal protection must prevail.

Michigan’s trial was unique because it included testimony from a panel of experts, and the state brought in several researchers that have been responsible for fueling conservatives’ claims that children of same-sex couples fare worse than those raised by a married mom and dad. Outlining the case’s findings of fact, Judge Friedman rejected the anti-gay researchers’ claims, saying in particular of Mark Regnerus’s testimony that it was “entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration”:

Marks, Price, and Allen all failed to concede the importance of “convenience sampling” as a social science research tool. They, along with Regnerus, clearly represent a fringe viewpoint that is rejected by the vast majority of their colleagues across a variety of social science fields. The most that can be said of these witnesses’ testimony is that the “no differences” consensus has not been proven with scientific certainty, not that there is any credible evidence showing that children raised by same-sex couples fare worse than those raised by heterosexual couples.

In other words, though the research on same-sex parenting is still advancing, nothing worth considering has yet contradicted the consensus that same-sex couples make just as effective parents as their heterosexual counterparts.

Friedman’s decision follows similar rulings in Texas, Kentucky, Virginia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Illinois, and Utah.

Cross posted from thinkprogress

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