Apostolic Clerk Disobeys SCOTUS, Denies Gay Marriage License

[AmazonGrace]

Protesters and supporters alike have come to Rowan County as well, adding to the stress for locals who want to get back to normal. Ante Pavkovic, a pastor from North Carolina, stood in the lobby of the county clerk's office Wednesday with a sign demanding that Davis' employees be fired for disobeying their boss by licensing same-sex marriages, even though they too face the threat of jail or fines if they defy the judge.

"Thinking of what the sodomites have done should make you sick," he said to the clerks, who mostly kept their heads down while a sheriff's deputy kept watch.

news.yahoo.com/clerk-denied-gay-marriage-licenses-goes-back-082558362.html#

Some of these protesters sound like deeply unpleasant people to me. God really wants to hang out with them for all eternity?

[chaotic life]

Please elaborate on said wedding. 8-)

Sadly, it was a relative so I don't want to say too much publically but it involved dead flowers (not dried, dead, dumpster dived from trash bins behind florist shops), beer cans strewn under the deck, and lots of wedding party crotch views from commando in micro-mini dresses.

I don't know if she was a friend or relative of the bride but it was in Morehead and she was definitely there. The marriage didn't last, don't know why the groom didn't think it was a concern when the bride's side wanted to get him plastered before his vows but it ended as tacky and tasteless as it began.

[Cartmann99]

news.yahoo.com/clerk-denied-gay-marriage-licenses-goes-back-082558362.html#

Some of these protesters sound like deeply unpleasant people to me. God really wants to hang out with them for all eternity?

Thank you for posting this. I heard a snippet about the NC pastor yesterday on the radio, but I couldn't find the news story last night.

[lawlifelgbt]

news.yahoo.com/clerk-denied-gay-marriage-licenses-goes-back-082558362.html#

Some of these protesters sound like deeply unpleasant people to me. God really wants to hang out with them for all eternity?

They do sound awful. You know, this is interesting to me (that is, the disgust that antigay people feel and their focus on the same-sex sex act). And I can't deny that, as a monosexual lesbian person, I feel the same disgust when I think about straight sex. However, unlike those bigots, I'm not constantly thinking about it and support straight friends without thinking too much about their sex lives.

I actually wanted to go into the sciences until late middle school, when I realized that as much as I'd like to, I just didn't have the math skills for a hard science degree. In a perfect world, I'd be a vet or genetic researcher. So, this means that I still have a strong interest in new science, and am always reading about studies and developments, especially as they intersect with politics and law, the areas I now have studied.

Anyway, so I came across several studies. Some salient points for the debate and reasons why people are antigay and Republicans especially are:

1. Republicans and Democrats show differences in MRI scans. Mainly, the amyglada of the brains of Republicans is larger. That thing is the "threat center" of the brain and controls fear. And many conservative positions, like on immigration, war, and yes, same-sex marriage, do seem based in fear. Greater fear is also closely correlated with xenophobia. Democrats, on the other hand, tend to use their insula more for tasks (the thing that internally monitors one's own feelings), and have smaller amygladas.

2. Republicans have slightly (think 6-11 points) lower IQs than Democrats. However, that study was out of London, and based on the bigger rich-poor gap and lack of options in the US, I would posit that for poor US Republicans, the IQ difference might be greater. Lower IQ is correlated with xenophobia and violence.

3. Republicans have a lower "digust tolerance." That is, they react more strongly to disgusting images/ideas, and find more things disgusting. This was a Virginia Tech study.

4. Disgust is tied to conservative ideas, and to homophobia. There's a book, "That's Digusting" which is quite a good read and discusses this a bit. There's also papers on same-sex marriage and how it ties with disgust.

Anyway, if you take all this together, I think it's easy to say that Republicans think differently, and that their anti-same-sex-marriage stance is, at base, about "that's icky!" But "ewwwwww......" is no basis for a good law. Stuff about God and protecting kids are just post hoc rationalizations.

[Howl]

Fascinating post. One of the things I really like about FJ is the variety of life perspectives and everything that goes along with it.

[AmazonGrace]

One argument against gay marriage that I've heard a lot is "what if everybody were gay? we would go extinct"

It always struck me as particularly stupid, because,

1. Haven't they ever heard of gay people having kids? Being gay doesn't mean one's infertile

2. Gay marriage or not, the percentage of gays is pretty stable. Gays don't suddenly take over and become the majority in the countries where it's allowed.

2." wait a minute... so if gay marriage was allowed, there's a danger that everybody would suddenly turn gay? Ooh so did you secretly want to be gay too, for all these years, just waiting for the gay marriage laws to pass?"

[snarkopolis]

Glad to see that WORK wasn't stopping them from getting out there. :lol:

[doggie]

Glad to see that WORK wasn't stopping them from getting out there. :lol:

sodomites want to get married Christians want to force their faith on others through the government.whats worse. seems Christians are great with it unless you replaced christian with Muslim or jew or a satanist.

[DaisyD]

One argument against gay marriage that I've heard a lot is "what if everybody were gay? we would go extinct"

It always struck me as particularly stupid, because,

1. Haven't they ever heard of gay people having kids? Being gay doesn't mean one's infertile

2. Gay marriage or not, the percentage of gays is pretty stable. Gays don't suddenly take over and become the majority in the countries where it's allowed.

2." wait a minute... so if gay marriage was allowed, there's a danger that everybody would suddenly turn gay? Ooh so did you secretly want to be gay too, for all these years, just waiting for the gay marriage laws to pass?"

My best friend (who is about 10 years younger than me) said she was afraid that we would go extinct because it would become trendy to be gay. :think: I just asked her if she was tempted to be with a woman. She said no. Hormones sweety, hormones. Ugh. I absolutely adore her, but sometimes I feel like I'm a one woman reason machine in this family (she's also my bil's girlfriend)

[FloraKitty35]

My best friend (who is about 10 years younger than me) said she was afraid that we would go extinct because it would become trendy to be gay. :think: I just asked her if she was tempted to be with a woman. She said no. Hormones sweety, hormones. Ugh. I absolutely adore her, but sometimes I feel like I'm a one woman reason machine in this family (she's also my bil's girlfriend)

Trendy to be gay? I didn't that LGBT was a fashion trend like pashmina's were about 8 to 10 years ago.

[FundieFarmer]

"One woman reason machine"...describes me in my family too :lol:

[Howl]

DH showed me this gem from the Daily Kos news desk:

Going to jail does not necessarily put you on a par with Martin Luther King. Jeffrey Dahmer was in jail because he believed in eating people. That doesn't make him a freedom fighter.

And frankly, if you're going to compare Kim Davis to someone from the 1960's civil rights movement, it should be this guy. That's right. Alabama governor and Dippity Do poster boy George Wallace, who famously stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama in defiance of the Supreme Court order to desegregate.

[SpoonfulOSugar]

Queerty is reporting that Survivor has filed a $1.2 M lawsuit against Davis and Huckabee for using "Eye of the Tiger." Good on Survivor.

(Haven't seen this in mainstream media, but haven't really been looking.)

[Howl]

Queerty is reporting that Survivor has filed a $1.2 M lawsuit against Davis and Huckabee for using "Eye of the Tiger." Good on Survivor.

(Haven't seen this in mainstream media, but haven't really been looking.)

Oooh, wonder how that's going to be settled! MIght made a dent in Huckabee's war chest.

I've been following the Todd Courser/Cindy Gamrat scandal in Michigan -- two teavangelical, family values, homophobic 1st-time legislators were exposed as engaging in a torrid extramarital affair. There are other fabulous and bizarre details, but on the day things were really hitting the fan, Todd Courser posted to facebook that, instead of listening to praise music on the way to work, he listened to Eye of the Tiger to give him strength. Have fundies co-opted Eye of the Tiger?

[DaisyD]

Gotta love George Takei. When told he should learn the first ammendment by a Kim Davis supporter he replied “The First Amendment has two clauses that are relevant here. One is the Establishment Clause, and the other is the Prohibition Clause. Congress may not prohibit free worship, and that is what so many claim, wrongly, is being violated. But it is also not empowered to establish any religion, nor to enact any laws favoring one religion over the other.

Permitting a state employee to foist her religion upon others, denying them a fundamental right as articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell, would be to give government, through this agent, the power to impose religious doctrine and viewpoint. That it cannot do. Ms. Davis is in effect establishing religion by using her governmental powers to impose her religious views. I know the First Ammendment, Shawn. Do you?â€

[Mercer]

"Here is a detailed job description. Are there any part to it that you would not be able to do?" is more specific, and it makes it clear that the issue is ability to do the essential aspects of the job.

This is what we do where I work. During an interview we make clear what the job responsibilities are, and the candidate states whether they are capable of performing them. If they can't, we see if reasonable accommodation can be made, and if not, then they aren't a good fit for the job. There's really no need to be able to ask about religion because what the staff member does in their private life is not our concern; we just care about whether they are able/willing to get the job done.

[CallmeChaCha]

[emoji7] I love it! The bad part is that people have their head so far up their ass that they don't realize they're imposing their religion on the rest of us. Yes, Kim Davis can practice her religion and bigotry and be a hateful person if she wishes. On her own time.

[FloraKitty35]

The Oathkeepers are going to protect Backwoods Bigot Barbie from being taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/1 ... tail=email

[doggie]

The Oathkeepers are going to protect Backwoods Bigot Barbie from being taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/1 ... tail=email

as if we needed more proof she is a law breaker.

[TuringMachine]

It does comfort me a bit that many of the top running GOP candidates have condemned her actions. Glad to know they're not all crazy. Or at least not crazy when it comes to this particular situation.

[RosyDaisy]

My cousin owns a small convenience store. Recently his town voted to go wet (as in approved alcohol sales). As soon as he got a liquor license, he bought another cooler and cleared space for alcoholic beverages.

Anyway, he made it very clear to his staff they would have to sell alcohol. If anyone didn't want to he would have to let them go, but would "put in a good word" at other stores that chose to stay, give a good recommendation to a potential new employer, and/or help them with filing for unemployment.

Surprisingly, there were no complaints. Only 1 clerk chose to leave. I think she found a new job quickly. I'm not sure if was because of alcohol sales or if she found a better job.

[Kylolo]

My cousin owns a small convenience store. Recently his town voted to go wet (as in approved alcohol sales). As soon as he got a liquor license, he bought another cooler and cleared space for alcoholic beverages.

Anyway, he made it very clear to his staff they would have to sell alcohol. If anyone didn't want to he would have to let them go, but would "put in a good word" at other stores that chose to stay, give a good recommendation to a potential new employer, and/or help them with filing for unemployment.

Surprisingly, there were no complaints. Only 1 clerk chose to leave. I think she found a new job quickly. I'm not sure if was because of alcohol sales or if she found a better job.

I just used a similar example yesterday in describing this situation. I grew up Southern Baptist; the pastor's brother attended church, didn't drink, and worked for a beer company. He thought drinking was sinful but could rationalize helping others "sin" to support his family. No one had a problem with that.

[Howl]

The Oathkeepers are going to protect Backwoods Bigot Barbie from being taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/1 ... tail=email

This is more than a little concerning. The Feds don't back down in a situation like this. Kim Davis should tell the oath keepers to f**k off because they could create an extremely dangerous situation for her. Hopefully, Kim will come to her senses and let the deputy clerks take care of business. Then, when the next election cycle comes around, the Dems can vote her ass out of office.

[Kylolo]

So this went up in Morehead today:

[artdecades]

This is more than a little concerning. The Feds don't back down in a situation like this. Kim Davis should tell the oath keepers to f**k off because they could create an extremely dangerous situation for her. Hopefully, Kim will come to her senses and let the deputy clerks take care of business. Then, when the next election cycle comes around, the Dems can vote her ass out of office.

The Feds do back down. Look at Cliven Bundy. Granted, the BLM isn't equipped to handle standoffs like the Marshals, but the government does not want another Waco and these fools know it.