Wilson: Problem is government in marriage

Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis sits in jail. She is held there under a judge’s order. The office she was duly elected to is now issuing marriage licenses again, be they straight or gay — the latter the reason Davis ordered the office to stop issuing licenses in the first place.

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Former Arkansas Gov. and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is among the masses arguing that what we’re seeing in this Rowan County town is the front line of a battle over religious liberty and Constitutional standards. They are absolutely right, but the problem is they don’t know which side is which.

Davis supporters scream for her lost religious liberty, and the self-appointed Paul Reveres of morality are riding their Internet horses, yelling, “The atheists are coming, the atheists are coming.”

Todd Starnes, Fox News’ go-to panderer, portrayed Davis as the victim with an interview that wove a tale of Davis living in a county that’s “a small patch of earth” and winning election last November to succeed her mother, who served as clerk for 40 years.

“It’s fair to say,” Starnes writes, “that issuing marriage licenses was something of a family business — until the day the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.”

With all due respect to Starnes — hint, it’s none — it’s not fair to say that. It doesn’t matter how many of Davis’ family members have held this position. The Rowan County Clerk’s Office is a taxpayer-funded office, and it always has been. And in taxpayer-funded offices, supervisors don’t carry unchecked spiritual veto power over who gets a government document when there’s no legal reason to deny it.

Davis was told she could have somebody else in the office sign off on same-sex marriage licenses so she wouldn’t have to compromise her values. She said no, and directed everybody in the office to follow her lead.

Religious liberty is stepping aside. Governmental overreach is running a taxpayer-funded office and ordering your employees to step aside. When Davis dictated office-wide policy based on her spiritual beliefs, she established a county religion. The First Amendment is pretty clear about that, and county clerks aren’t county pastors.

Meanwhile, Davis fights on against her contempt of court and refuses to give up her office, or its $80,000 annual salary.

“If I left, resigned or chose to retire,” Davis told Starnes, “I would have no voice for God’s word.”

On the contrary, Davis could quit with her liberty and voice intact. She just wouldn’t have her taxpayer-funded microphone anymore.

The ones being denied their religious liberty and Constitutional rights are on the other side of the counter. They’re trying to get a license they’re entitled to receive, but they’re being told no because of a cherry-picked Bible verse. Davis supporters are saying, “Drive to another county, problem solved.”

So if a Muslim DMV manager decided not to renew a driver’s license for a woman, would we just tell our daughters, sisters, wives and mothers to suck it up and get a driver’s license in another county? If a Jewish postmaster decided he wasn’t going to deliver anything in December because there might be some Christmas presents in there, would we just shrug our shoulders and set up a P.O. box in the next city?

Answer seriously, and then ask yourself this: Isn’t the problem government’s involvement in marriage in the first place? The ones arguing that are drowned out by battle cries of a culture war that will continue, with us not knowing which side is which and confused over who we should actually be fighting.

Kevin Wilson is a columnist for Clovis Media Inc. He can be contacted at 575-763-5541, or by email:

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