Legal Avenues Have Run Out For Bigoted Kentucky Clerk

(This photo of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis is from the Louisville Courier-Journal.)

When the Supreme Court ruled last summer that same-sex couples have the same marriage rights as all other couples, there were a few county clerks in the country that tried (and failed) to fight the ruling. The most famous of these bigoted clerks was Kim Davis in Kentucky.

Davis claimed that having to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple violated her religious rights. When it became obvious that she could not discriminate in the issuing of licenses, she stopped issuing licenses to any couple. That could not be sustained. Both same-sex and opposite-sex couples took her to court, and the court ruled she must issue the licenses. She was even put into jail for a while -- until her assistant clerks began issuing the licenses.

But Davis is nothing if not hardheaded, so she went to court herself to retain her "religious" right to discriminate. She lost, and appealed to the Court of Appeals. Last week, that court made it's decision -- and it went against Davis. The court said:

"It cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk's office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court."

In other words, her religion doesn't give her the right to violate the Constitution. Davis then appealed to the United States Supreme Court. That appeal went to Justice Kagan, who referred it to the whole court. Yesterday, the court rejected the appeal (without even a single abstention). The court didn't think her case was worth hearing.

Kim Davis may not like it, but this fight is over. The Constitution guarantees all citizens the same rights, including the right to marry the person of their choice -- and if Davis doesn't like that, she can resign. Her religious rights have NOT been violated, and she cannot violate the rights of others.