While I certainly don’t foresee the 2016 Presidential contest being affected by this story, with two months to go before the election for governor here in Kentucky, Republican Matt Bevin has just thrown in his lot with Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and the wrong side of history.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin rushed to defend Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis after she again refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples Tuesday morning.
Bevin also scolded Democratic opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, for failing to stand by the religious liberties of county clerks who oppose the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
“Jack Conway has failed to do his job as attorney general by refusing to defend Kentucky’s marriage amendment, and he is failing to defend the religious freedom of our Kentucky clerks,” Bevin said in a statement.
The comments come amid an intense standoff at Davis’s office where a gay couple sought to obtain a marriage license after the High Court rejected her last-ditch effort for a stay Monday. After a heated exchange between Davis and the couple, their attorneys filed a motion to find Davis in contempt of courtfor refusing to issue them a marriage license.
In response, the Bevin campaign sought to tie Conway — who refused to appeal the initial federal ruling against the state’s same-sex marriage ban last year — to the controversy in a series of Tweets. Bevin’s campaign said the Democrat is refusing to defend the First Amendment rights of county clerks.
“As attorney general, it’s Jack Conway’s job to defend the Constitutional rights of all Kentuckians, including county clerks,” Bevin’s Twitter account said.
I swear, for a while there I was afraid Matt Bevin wasn’t this much of a moron. He might actually find a way to lose this thing now. If he had just said that this was a matter “for the courts” or “for the legislature” to deal with like Gov. Beshear said yesterday, he could have gotten away with it. It wouldn’t be up to Bevin anyway to impeach and remove Davis from her office, and he doesn’t make federal court decisions.
But by coming out squarely in the defense of an anti-gay bigot that’s clearly breaking the law, Bevin has nowhere to hide now. As Governor he’d be a national embarrassment to the Commonwealth (as it is we Kentuckians look like backwater hicks most of the time) but there’s a point where it’s too much, and Bevin has reached it. There’s a reason he was crushed by Mitch McConnell last year.
On the other hand if Jack Conway can’t find a way to bloody Bevin’s nose over this and severely damage Bevin’s campaign, then he’s too incompetent for the job in Frankfort anyway.
c u n d gulag
Is Bevin also proposing to build hitching-posts on all of the main streets in KY?
What a bigoted antique doofus!
SFAW
Have you learned NOTHING in the last 15 years? Next, you’ll be trying to tell us that we’ve reached Peak Wingnut.
I don’t generally gamble, but that’s where I’d place my money.
As Atrios and others often say – “Happy to be wrong.”
SFAW
@c u n d gulag:
Feature, not bug.
Belafon
The problem is getting punched in the face by a liberal is one of the things that automatically gets a winger into heaven.
Botsplainer
Bevin is an unadulterated disaster, a horrible human being, a liar and incompetent. That said, while Conway is a competent official, he assembles the worst campaign advisors and is a timid, mediocre candidate on the stump. His latest set of messages is on Bevin’s refusal to release his tax returns.
He should be leading by 20 points, and instead, I’m afraid Bevin is going to win.
Bevin will take immediate aim at Kentucky’s health exchange mechanism. The other things he will do will make this place look like Kansas.
Patricia Kayden
Of course Conway is doing the right thing and history will note that Bevins, like bigots of the past, is squarely on the wrong side. There is no way that Ms. Davis can win this battle. Bevins is just pandering to rightwing voters and it would be lovely if his pandering didn’t pay off.
Patricia Kayden
@Botsplainer: If Kentuckians vote for Bevins, they’ll get what they deserve. No one can say that they are confused about Bevins’ stances on important issues and elections have (sometimes dire) consequences.
Belafon
@Botsplainer:
Is Kentucky one of those places where people look at the issues when they decide to vote?
SFAW
@Belafon:
That’s because it (almost) never happens, so it’s on a par with various other miracles.
Mandalay
In the context of Kim Davis refusing to marry same sex couples it is completely fair to point out that she is on her fourth marriage.
And of course she has the begging bowl out. She wants us to give her $75,000. After five days she’s got $92:
She’s not even pretending that she wants the money for legal fees. Beyond shameless.
benw
@SFAW: Agree with this 100%. Continuing to blame Democratic candidates for not doing more damage to their opponents who pop off like Bevin here, when it’s very clear now that Republicans can say anything with impunity, is outdated. The R base loves it, and the media will not push back against it.
Patricia Kayden
@Mandalay: She’ll get her $75,000. Remember those pizza bigots? Bigotry can pay off well when you have an angry base to beg from.
Elizabelle
Glad to hear of Bevin’s statement. It might wake some Kentuckians up and get them off the fence.
No idea how Conway’s campaign is going, but couldn’t he talk up, again and again, how successful Kynect has been?
Learn something from Allison Grimes Lundergan’s non-election. Please.
Shame that Kentucky votes so red, cuz I think I’d love to live in Louisville or Covington or another blue enclave for a while. Charming state.
scav
Ah, if only there was a religion that sincerely believed that all flat screen TVs should only be owned by the devout, so that state DAs could go to bat for the right of the believing pious to liberate the god-offending TVs in the living-rooms of all the un-similarly-churched. Or for the Church of the Truly Tithing members working for the IRS to express their deeply held contributory beliefs yearly at the High Holy Day in April.
Zandar
@Belafon: Judging by Bevin’s JACK CONWAY IS AN OBAMA LIBERAL commercials, which last year helped Mitch win by 16, the answer is no.
The awesome part is Conway’s commercials are all about him as Attorney General suing Obama and the EPA over coal.
JDM
How hard is it to say “Gee, I hate to say it, but it’s out of my hands since the Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter”?
Apparently, too hard. For stupid bigots. I’m actually kinda glad so many of our bigots aren’t smarter.
Zandar
@Elizabelle: Conway’s campaign is, in a word, awful.
And he’s learned nothing from Grimes.
Bevin’s stupidity is in fact my only hope of avoiding a governor who wants to essentially privatize the entire Commonwealth.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Patricia Kayden: BUT IT ALWAYS DOES.
Gonna have to find a better strategy for winning elections than “act like a meek yet decent human being when your opponent isn’t”
That mindset is killing Dems at the local level here, in what really is the most blue state in the country. IT DOESN’T WORK.
SFAW
@Mandalay:
Not really, you imbecile. But if you truly want to live in a theocracy, I hear parts of Syria and Iraq might be right up your alley.
lgerard
@Mandalay:
That is truly pathetic, as is the picture she chose.
boatboy_srq
@Patricia Kayden:
Opening act for Benghazi Fetus Parts.
Elizabelle
@Zandar: How sad. Kentucky deserves better.
dedc79
Even Maggie F’ing Gallagher has given up on this nonsense, but I guess Bevin didn’t read the memo.
lgerard
@Zandar:
I keep wondering how much longer the politicians in KY and WVA are going to keep pretending that it is the 19th century. It is such an incredible disservice to their constituents.
Elizabelle
@Mandalay: Jesus wept. (And he might be. Or having a stiff drink.)
From Davis’s appeal for funds (still at $92.00):
Really? Is God going to smite her?
In serial monogamy, in Ms. Davis’s case.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Objection, Your Honor! Assumes facts not in evidence!
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Or in the case of one Solomon of Judea, One Man and Three Hundred Women and Nine Hundred Concubines. Something tells me YHWH told him that was OK, too. If anything, One Woman and One Man and then One Other Man and then One Other Man and then Still One Other Man doesn’t exactly represent Scriptural adherence either.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle:
Something tells me she’ll get her $75K a lot faster if she sells tickets to that event.
SFAW
@boatboy_srq:
Shlomo weren’t no Christian, son. And Jeebus beats YHWH all hollow, back whar I come from.
boatboy_srq
@SFAW: If they’re going to beat us with Leviticus, we can beat them with Kings and Chronicles, no?
SFAW
@boatboy_srq:
Don’t know. I’m an adherent of “Bob” Dobbs, meself.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t share your confidence at all. If anything, I suspect this will do wonders for Blevin’s campaign. Tribal identity is by far the biggest chunk of Kentucky’s politics, and spite is #2. Telling gays to fuck off, and the government to fuck off when it tries to stop you, makes you a hero in most of the state.
I almost wrote ‘this state’, but I moved back to California yesterday. Thank goodness.
lgerard
@SFAW:
Here is some evidence
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/01/kentucky-clerk-fighting-gay-marriage-has-wed-four-times
boatboy_srq
@lgerard:
Wow. So much for monogamy, serial or otherwise.
SFAW
@lgerard:
Yes: evidence that she was not monogamous, which was my point.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@lgerard: Her “family tree” will look like a goddamn tumbleweed.
Librarian
I don’t suppose Conway has taken a position on Davis one way or the other. I guess it’s too much to expect that he would come out against her.
Paul in KY
@SFAW: Bevins must be worried. He’s trying to get the nutty religious types all riled up to come to polls in Nov.
Unfortunately, it could work.
Elizabelle
@SFAW: So true re “facts not in evidence.”
Have we figured out which late Mother in Law set Ms. Davis on the path to excessively judgmental Christianity?
@boatboy_srq: It is to laugh. I’d guess Pope Francis did a private facepalm when he heard about this episode (and he probably has).
burnspbesq
Apparently, Lindsey Graham is now saying that Davis should resign if she’s not willing to carry out the duties of her office.
Make of that what you will. I guess he’s a RINO.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: He needs to just run Mitch’s commercials on Bevins. Say here’s what the Senate Majority leader & senior senator from KY thinks about him.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
I haven’t been following the story super-closely — where do you get the Mother-in-Law thing from? Was that in a news report that I missed or only skimmed? Or just an edumacated guess on your part?
Calouste
@Elizabelle: I think that was the mother-in-law from which she inherited the county clerk office, which would be the fourth.
beltane
@Mandalay: Her fundraising page at the link is no longer available. God must have smote it.
Elizabelle
@SFAW: Twas in a statement Mrs. _____ ______ _____ Davis put out yesterday. Hunting it for you now.
From the US Snooze link:
Elizabelle
@SFAW: Here it is. From Davis’s statement published in the Morehead (KY) News:
Makes me wonder if the “godly” MIL is current hubby’s deceased mother. He being the self-described hillbilly who believes in second amendment remedies. Probably got that from the teachings of the Lord Jesus too.
I kind of think it was Davis’s own mother who was previous county clerk.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Fucking immoral, sanctimonious hypocrites, all of ’em.
boatboy_srq
@SFAW: Christianism is all about the appearances.
Tripod
@lgerard:
Clearly Obama’s a socialist. Now if we all clap harder, we can get the cost to produce a BTUs worth of Appalachian coal below a BTUs worth of Natural Gas.
Lee
Vote for Drew!!
Patrick
@Elizabelle:
Word of God?! Such as “He without sin cast the first stone”!!! She admitted she is not without sin, yet she casting the first stone…
boatboy_srq
@Patrick: Of course she’s without sin. She just got Washed in The Blood. Her slate’s squeaky-clean. That’s what “surrendering your life to Jesus Christ” means in FundiEvangelist dogwhistle.
Elizabelle
@Patrick:
@boatboy_srq:
Selective hearing in these fundamentalists, no? Must be part of God’s big mystery…
Patrick
@boatboy_srq:
And I’m told I need to be scared of sharia law? FundiEvangelist law sounds pretty scary on its own…
Calouste
@SFAW: I don’t understand the attractiveness for the church is in promising that conversion wipes your slate clean. To me that obviously means that the incentive is for you to sin your whole life and convert only on your death bed, having your slate wiped clean. People who convert any earlier being suckers. And the downside for the church of course is that you won’t be giving them any money during your life, and being the sinner that you are, you will die in debt.
Frank Wilhoit
“…her conversion to Christianity about four years ago wiped her slate clean….”
It is always about the unaccountability. It is never about anything else. Hold that lens up to every “conservative” prejudice, complaint, myth, wish; be they economic, social, foreign-policy, whatever.
It is always and only about the unaccountability.
sukabi
@Calouste: maw, back when the Wrecking Crew were looking into and justifying torture, there was a female high ranking officer that had just gone thru her “conversion” and was opining about how freeing it was. Every day was a new start, whatever heinous thing you did the day before was washed away.
boatboy_srq
@Patrick: Same source; merely a different translation. Complete with allergy to idolatry (ISIS may be blowing up temples and felling statues, but the earliest FundiEvangelists were all about breaking stained-glass windows and burning icons too) and terror of people (meaning men) seeing any part of a woman’s body in public.
Bobby Thomson
It’s your state, but my view as an outsider is this definitely won’t hurt him.
Shakti
Of course. Of course a state that has a postal abbreviation synonymous with lube is going to take the side of a woman who dresses in sister wife chic.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Considering they condense The Book into one chapter of Genesis, ten words in Leviticus, and the letters of Paul, selective hearing is the least of their maladies.
Paul in KY
@Calouste: You can keep asking for forgiveness for each new transgression. Obviously, those people say they have sincerely repented & then go about acting like they are forgiven. Very smug, most of them.