Kentucky governor tells county clerks: Do your jobs or get fired

[47of74]

Source: Rawstory

Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has ordered the state’s county clerks to honor the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and allow same-sex couples to marry or to resign from their jobs.

According to WHAS-TV, Beshear issued a statement on Thursday addressing the concerns of County Clerk Casey Davis, but ordering all state employees to honor the court ruling.

“This morning, I advised Mr. Davis that I respect his right to his own personal beliefs regarding same-sex marriages. However, when he was elected, he took a constitutional oath to uphold the United States Constitution,” Beshear said in his statement.

The statement continued by saying that Beshear would not grant a special legislative session to discuss the matter as requested in a letter signed by 60 of the state’s county clerks:

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/kentucky-governor-tells-county-clerks-do-your-jobs-or-get-fired/

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Good. Score one for the rule of law.

[riversedge]

1. Thank you gov.

[sheshe2]

2. Love Gov Beshear!!!!!

[RKP5637]

3. Excellent! Thank you! IMO it's the duty of the clerks to follow the law, not make the

laws as they attempt to use their positions as a pulpit. If they can not function as unbiased clerks, then they need to quit or be removed as clerks.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. If you don't like state law, quit your fucking job

Really simple as that.

[daleanime]

10. +1

[47of74]

14. +2

[calimary]

34. +3.

If your "principles" or your "religious objections," or your "sincerely-held beliefs" (or whatever excuse you want to give that defies the SECULAR government we still have in this country) prevent you from doing your job, then you're in the wrong job. You need to change jobs. This isn't that complicated. You simply need to get a different job.

[Roland99]

37. +60

one for each knuckle-dragging, bible-thumping bigot.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. Inaccurate headline?

Seems he's asking them to resign if they don't do their jobs. Does the Ky. governor have the ability to fire an elected county clerk?

[drm604]

6. Interesting question.

Surely there has to be some mechanism for removing people who refuse to do their job. Since they're elected, would there have to be an impeachment?

[jberryhill]

26. Refusing to perform official duties is a misdemeanor in KY

[bluestateguy]

7. It is good, but there's a but

The clerks who choose to get fired will be drama queens till the end, and be martyrs for the Right. They'll get Gofundme fundraisers, the Fox news and talk radio circuit, guest speaker slots at CPAC, book deals. You know how it works.

[CherokeeDem]

8. YES!!!!!

I currently live in Kentucky and the one thing I'm very proud of is this man. He has been an excellent governor!!!!

Beshear has never failed to do the right thing...

[blackspade]

9. I can't stand Beshear

But this is good.

[Raster]

11. About flippin' time! Every Governor of EVERY STATE should clearly articulate the same reality...

...to their state's employees. And to the county clerks: You are glorified paper pushers. Nothing more. Do you really want to lose your cushy county job over your religious hissy fit? Learn it and shut it. Issue the licenses.

[niyad]

12. YES!!!!!

dear religious zealot govt employees:

if you are sucking at the public, secular teat, then you had damned well better do your jobs. if your religious views are so sacred to you, work for a church (oh, they probably don't pay as well as sucking at the public teat).

[bucolic_frolic]

13. OMG! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!

Republicans forced to abide by the rule of law

INSTEAD OF CREATING THEIR OWN???

What's the whirled coming to?

[dinger130]

15. A court can issue

an injunction.

If a court doesn't act, then an impeachment process can begin.

[calimary]

35. Welcome to DU, dinger130!

Glad you're here! There should be consequences for this. If you take an oath, as a clerk of the court - of a SECULAR government, in order to assume your duties, seems to me you've already sworn your allegiance TO THAT SECULAR GOVERNMENT. Allowing a different allegiance to step in on that AFTER you swore to it - is out of bounds.

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's" - or something like that. Even Our Lord made a very clear delineation between the two. Even Our Lord made it clear that those two things are NOT the same. The quote was NOT "Do not differentiate what you render unto whom. It is ALL unto God and there is nothing to render under Caesar" or "render unto Caesar and unto God all things because those two are one-and-the-same and they are both intertwined and interdependent" or some such thing.

You can't just decide to pick and choose which laws you like when you take an oath to serve in a government position. Guess these clerks conveniently forgot that, or want to rewrite the rules to conform to their beliefs the same way their side always wants to rewrite history to conform to their beliefs.

Off with their heads if you ask me.

Hey! Let's bring Donald Trump in to tell 'em "yer FIRED!"

[w0nderer]

16. Oh my heathen deity!

I've been hoping for something like this on multiple levels


pharmacist that won't hand out birth control (could you reasonably figure out it was part of the job before you took it? good! do the job or get fired)
clerk that won't marry Same Sex Couples
doctor that won't treat a kid that got raped because it might mean abortion

or even
doctor that won't treat someone because it'll be against his faith to use 'x' where x is his superstition


FIRE THEM ALL!
when religion is more important than life..i support live sacrifices of those who think so
--w0nderer (2014-11-26 general discussion)

[James48]

17. Call the Clerk- tell him to resign

This afternoon I telephoned County Clerk Casey Davis's office in Liberty Kentucky.

The number is : [phone].

I asked him to uphold the CONSTITUTION, OR ELSE RESIGN.
to issue a license.

He told me he had no intention of doing any such thing, that it is his 1st Amendment Right to refuse.

I told him I was a citizen and I demanded he do his job.

He hung up on me.

YOU can call him in the morning at that number. Please do so.

[allan01]

22. then you have the right to sue the clerk. $ 2000 .00 a pop if i am correct

[Hepburn]

27. Yes!!!

Hey, it's his job...do it or move on. It is that simple.

[Hepburn]

38. I emailed him.

Addie for Casey Davis:

[email protected]

I told him to do his job or resign and it was too bad that he had a mortgage to pay -- as he stated in the article is why he could not resign. I told him that if her was a true believer, then he could resign cuz "God would provide."

[Solly Mack]

18. Excellent!

[A Little Weird]

19. It will be interesting to see how this plays out

I'm originally from this area. Casey County is about as red a county as there is in Kentucky. They had a big rally in support of Davis - http://www.caseynews.net/content/supporters-rally-county-clerk - I think he's enjoying his 15 minutes of fame.

I'm not a huge fan of Beshear but I'm glad to see his response.

[Dustlawyer]

20. This is why we have Separation of Church and State!

[Botany]

21. Good for Governor Beshear

Do your job or get fired.

I want that awful Kim Davis of Rowan County, KY gone or have her doing her job today.

[allan01]

23. then you have the right to sue the clerk. $ 2000 .00 a pop if i am correct

[jeff47]

28. Actually, there's no limit on the price.

And you get to pierce the clerk's immunity, so the clerk gets to pay out of their personal checkbook. And you get attorney's fees.

I expect a cadre of lawyers will happily drive gay and lesbian couples around these areas, just to get denied a license. It would be quite profitable.

[Feeling the Bern]

24. Good governor and two shit senators. KY is really schizophrenic.

[calimary]

36. Welcome to DU, Feeling the Bern!

Glad you're here! There are lots of Bernie supporters here, as you may already have noticed. They'll be very happy you're here, too.

[Stonepounder]

40. Can you say Gerrymander?

We really aren't schizophrenic. There are more registered Democrats here in Kentucky than Republicans. But the Turtle and Mr. Ayn Rand Jr. have the name recognition and we Democrats haven't been able to find a really strong Senatorial candidate to run. We thought Allison Grimes might have a chance but she couldn't fight the negative, lying ads.

Also, we have a Democratic for Lt. Governor and AG.

[Botany]

30. KY, WV, TN, and S.E. OH are examples of people who vote against their own best interests ...

.... for a number of reasons not the least of them being that "their pastors" tell
them how to vote. Also the gun culture, the fact that Barack Obama is black,
and being told that liberal environmentalists are the people that made their
coal mining jobs go away are factors too.

[47of74]

42. I just see one problem

Many of the same people were still in power before and after the civil rights movement, they changed parties, flipping from D to R when it became clear that the national party was no longer going to support their rather Klannish ways.

Having said that I do thing we can't write the south off and just let the Republicans have the south without a fight. I think that's why Mitch McF--kstick still has a job as a Senator. We just wrote that race off and let the people of Kentucky twist in the wind. We should have had a hard, pipe hitting progressive who was going to go medieval first and play nice second.

[Hepburn]

29. FAX NUMBER FOR CASEY DAVIS:

Fax: [phone]

[Stellar]

31. That's what they should tell everybody that don't want to follow the law.

Damn what your religion says is wrong for you. I don't share that same religion.

[LynneSin]

33. You know who is persecuting the Christians...

Themselves!!

It's like they are volunteering themselves to be fed to lions.

Or when they get on the bus they demand that they be sat at the back of the bus.

These 'Christians' claim this is a new 'Holocaust' but they are asking for the directions to the camps.

It's bullshit.

No one is making them suffer but themselves. They watch TV and see these GOP politicians and religious idiots screaming about all the suffering that Christians will 'suffer' because the gays can now marry.

There is no suffering except the suffering they create themselves.

I'm a Christian, my life is exactly the same as it was before SCOTUS said LGBT deserved marriage equality. My faith has not changed, no one is punishing me. The only thing different is that my friends who are LBGT now have the same marriage rights I have. I see nothing wrong with that other than it's about fricking time (well I'm in Delaware they've had it for awhile).

I'm tired of this fake suffering - it's bullshit!

[HughBeaumont]

39. It's funny how the exact same people who will GoFund "martyrs" like Kim Davis . . .

. . . . for refusing to do her job and break federally mandated and state-enacted legal precedents for "religious reasons" . . . .

. . . are the same ones that are on every thread and FB meme when (insert person of non-white and/or poor socioeconomic standing here) breaks the law yelling racial/bootstrapper/finger-wagging insults.

Sooooooo . . . SOME people are exempt to abide by TEH SYSTEM because "we gotten ta stop teh spred of teh GEIGH!!1!", yet everyone else better obey the law, specifically (insert person of non-white and/or poor socioeconomic standing here)?

[hifiguy]

41. Abso-fuckin-lutely.

Issuing a marriage license is a ministerial act with discretion playing no part, like recording a deed or notarizing a document.

Do your goddamn job, quit or be fired.

[Helen Borg]

43. No, no, but he did not say that!

He said to do their job or resign. Unclear whether they will be fired, actually.

[roamer65]

44. Religious dogma does not trump the 14th amendment's equal protection clause.

Sue the a$$ off these clerks and put them in the poorhouse.

[RecoveringJournalist]

45. Just wondering

It would be very interesting to see how many marriages over time these clerks performed without the use of any religious artifact such as Bibles, etc. Surely there is at least one instance (probably a lot more) where no Bible was present, yet the marriage was performed without anyone raising a fuss. Someone should scour records to find this out and then throw it in their face(s). If they did not have a problem performing these marriages, then they are hypocrites and should be called out as such to their face(s).

[bluestateguy]

46. Can he send the state police in to arrest county clerks who continue to defy?

As in could the governor send the state police to a county clerk's office to arrest a county clerk who continues to defy state law and the USSC?

And then what? Could state employees brush aside county workers who defy the law, and just issue the marriage liscences in their place?