I have compassion for Kim Davis and the position she found herself in. When she took the job as County Clerk of Rowan County,Kentucky, as she understood the world, two people of the same sex didn't marry each other, any more than brother and sister would. The oath she swore to uphold the law was, as far as she knew, one she could keep. [Further on that oath below the squiggle.]
As it turns out, any laws that have prevented two people of the same sex from marrying have been unconstitutional from the time they or the 14th Amendment were passed (whichever came first), and it has taken this long and this much ruckus to make that clear and indisputable.
Now that oath and her duties are in conflict with what she understands is her duty to God. She failed to understand all the nuances of law and process -- and possibly of her avowed religion. She took a stand placing duty to God over what she understood was bad law.
That's where the fun began. Liberty Counsel, her lawyers, well funded through people she considers to be "on her side", have directed her in holding her stance. Meanwhile, her son, as one of her deputy clerks, is also between said rock and hard place -- so she has that additional pressure with which to contend. And the circumstances force her to address that issue to the exclusion of most anything else.
Kim Davis has not been served well by the people she may consider to be on her side. As part of their Seven Mountains strategy, other parts of their Dominionist movement have deprived the local schools of support for teaching critical thinking, among the other skills that could help her come to grips with the changes around her.
And the Kentucky law appears to leave her in the hot seat -- or, perhaps the attitude of privilege she has been supported in developing has eroded the support she might have expected from the County or her deputies.
She is in a lonely, exposed place, with no good options -- like, perhaps, the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike -- but this time, that dike is supposed to be breached.
The oath Kim Davis took may have led her to believe God's law trumps secular (Constitutional) law -- and she would not be alone in this misunderstanding
Kim Davis is County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, an elected official (unlike her deputy clerks). The elected county officials in Kentucky are county judge/executive, sheriff, county attorney, county clerk, jailer, coroner, justices of the peace (commonly called magistrates), constables, county surveyor, and property valuation administrator (Ky. Const., sec. 99).
According to the Associated Press, this is the oath:
Section 228 of the Kentucky Constitution, oath of officers and attorneys:
Members of the General Assembly and all officers, before they enter upon the execution of the duties of their respective offices, and all members of the bar, before they enter upon the practice of their profession, shall take the following oath or affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of county clerk according to law; and I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God."
Emphasis mine.
According to Noah Feldman, a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University writing for BloombergView, reflects on Davis's understanding of the oath, as she took it, as stated in her complaint against the Governor of Kentucky and the State Librarian and Commissioner, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives:
Before taking office as County Clerk in January 2015, Davis swore an oath to support the constitutions and laws of the United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky 'so help me God'. Davis understood (and understands) this oath to mean that, in upholding the federal and state constitutions and laws, she would not act in contradiction to the moral law of God, natural law, or her sincerely held religious beliefs and convictions.
Emphasis mine.
Feldman relates an instance in which an Arkansas state senator came to a similar understanding because he had sworn his oath with his hand on a Bible.
The core of their notion isn't crazy. An oath is typically taken by some power, and most people no doubt believe they're swearing by Almighty God to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States (and of the state, in the case of these state officials). Would it make sense to swear an oath in God's name and then go and obey that oath in violation of God's word?
It wouldn't, of course -- but that's (mostly) beside the point. Whom you swear the oath by is different from what you swear to do. Officials in the U.S. definitively don't swear to uphold God's law. They swear to uphold the Constitution, which never mentions God at all. And they swear to uphold laws enacted under the Constitution -- which means laws that are in compliance with the establishment clause that prohibits any established or official religion.
Absent excellent reading comprehension skills, decent critical thinking skills, and a clear understanding of the governing legal and Constitutional principles -- products of a decent high school education -- it becomes easier to reach that erroneous conclusion and harder to shake that conclusion in the face of challenge.
Learned counsel, on the other hand, ...
should know better. Unless, of course, it is to their advantage not to know better.
Which leads us to the false equivalency in her Complaint...
In February 2014, the Western District of Kentucky issued a decision holding Kentucky's definition of marriage unconstitutional. In March 2014, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, whose office had represented Kentucky in the case, tearfully proclaimed that after prayer and consultation with his wife he could not continue defending Kentucky's marriage laws as an 'inescapable' matter of conscience.
At that point, the Governor hired outside counsel, at considerable expense, to appeal on behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and took no action against AG Conway.
Davis, through her counsel, sees AG Conway's inaction due to conscienceto be equivalent to her own inaction due to conscience and asserts that the Governor has allowed the one and disallowed the other -- clear discriminatory treatment on his part.
What she fails to see (and counsel, I assume, hopes no one else sees) is that AG Conway did not cite religious objections of conscience in refusing to appeal on behalf of Kentucky. Indeed, it appears his tearful proclamation resulted from the conflict of his religious views with the force and findings of Constitutional law, and his legal, constitutionally-informed conscience balked at proceeding.