Arrested for denying marriage licenses to gay couples, Kim Davis is now being championed by the Republican candidates as a hero. Her imprisonment signals the end of Christian privilege in the US. Spencer Kimball reports.
A gay couple, surrounded by media, stands at the counter in the county clerk’s office and asks to be served. They would like a marriage license. Two months earlier, the highest court in the United States had legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
But in this small county in the state of Kentucky, the clerk obeys laws different than those weighed by the Supreme Court. Kim Davis, an evangelical Christian, refuses to issue the marriage license. When asked by the couple under what authority, she responds: “God’s authority.”
Davis was ultimately found in contempt of court and arrested. Though now in jail, she’s still officially the county clerk in Rowan County. As an elected official, Davis can only be removed from office by the state legislature. She receives a salary of $80,000 (72,000 euros) a year from the taxpayer.
Bill Leonard is a Baptist minister and an expert on American religious life at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. According to Leonard, if Davis can’t fulfill the oath she took as county clerk to execute the laws of the land, she should resign.
“It’s fine for her to oppose this on the basis of liberty of conscience, a lot of people do that,” Leonard told DW. “But she’s contradicting the oath she took. She can’t have it both ways. She can’t keep making $80,000 a year and not fulfill her oath.”