Sex columnist Dan Savage takes on anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis

Outspoken sex columnist Dan Savage didn’t hold back when it came to the subject of Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis Wednesday night on MSNBC.

“She is a hypocrite,” Savage said of the woman who cites her religious belief in illegally refusing to give gay couples marriage licenses.

Citing her three divorces, Savage said: “Jesus Christ himself in Scripture condemns divorce, calls it adultery and forbids it.”

Davis is defying a Supreme Court order by refusing to do her job and issue marriage licenses to gay couples. She has refused and will face a judge Thursday to answer for her defiance. Davis has cited her religious beliefs, which her lawyer admits she only came to four years ago.

Citing a U.S. News report on her multiple marriages and children conceived while she was between husbands, Savage not only called her a hypocrite, but suggested she wanted to be a martyr and accused her of planning to cash in on the controversy.

“I think Kim Davis is waiting to cash in,” said Savage, who is gay. “I predicted from the beginning that she would defy all the court orders, defy the Supreme Court. She would be ultimately be held in contempt of court, lose her job, perhaps go to prison for a short amount of time and then she will have written for her ghost-written books, she will go on the right-wing lecture circuit and she’ll never have to do an honest day’s work ever again in her life.”

He said one needs a spreadsheet to keep track of her marriages.

“This is a woman who’s been divorced three times and married four times … gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband, (and) they were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second husband.”

John A. Oswald is editor-at-large at Metro and can be found on Twitter @nyc_oz.
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(FROM REUTERS)

A county clerk in Kentucky sought an emergency injunction on Wednesday to temporarily block a federal court order requiring her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a day before she goes to court to face contempt charges.

Kim Davis, the elected Rowan County clerk, says her religious beliefs as an Apostolic Christian stop her from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that made gay marriage legal nationwide.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week and the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied Davis’ requests to temporarily block the order requiring the county to issue marriage licenses.

Her refusal to issue licenses drew a rare response on Wednesday from the top federal prosecutor for the area, who is not a party to the case.

“We have grave concerns about the reported failure to comply with the court’s order,” U.S. Attorney Kerry Harvey said in a statement. “Government officials are free to disagree with the law, but not disobey it.

Attorneys for Davis said in their filing on Wednesday that an injunction would “halt the irreversible implications on Davis’ conscience” while the appeals court reviews her claims and less burdensome alternatives.

Despite claims by Davis’s legal counsel that an executive order allowing her not to sign the licenses would address the issue, a spokesman for Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear affirmed on Wednesday that Beshear has no authority over Davis’ office.

Davis, who has refused to issue marriage licenses to any couples, gay or straight, is represented by Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian religious advocacy organization.

Four couples filed a federal lawsuit in July challenging her policy of not issuing licenses. The couples filed a motion on Tuesday asking U.S. District Judge David Bunning to hold her in contempt of court, seeking fines but no jail time.

Liberty is providing legal services at no cost to Davis, but have not discussed payment on any potential fines, the group’s founder and Chairman Mathew Staver told Reuters in an email.

“However, we do know that there is a lot of support for Kim Davis in the event that she is fined. And we believe that there would be sufficient number of people that would help cover some or all of it,” Staver said.

Davis is due to appear before Bunning in Ashland, Kentucky, on Thursday.