Kentucky County Clerk, Davis, Who Defied Court Order On Same-Sex Marriage Licenses, Jailed

   Well, this isn't great, as it could galvanize the anti-SSM folk. Though maybe they're already galvanized...
   It's difficult for me to sympathize with people like Davis, because it's natural for me to think about SSM by analogy to interracial marriage. However, I do think there's a case to be made that we've got to give people time to adjust. And we should accommodate their moral conscience to the extent that that doesn't interfere with the rights of others. From here on out, it should be made clear that, if you agree with Davis, you simply shouldn't seek election to the office of county clerk...  But, of course, some people like Davis are already in office. I was hoping that we might be able to find some compromise whereby someone else issued the licenses...and it looks like her deputies could have done so. But she refused to let them. At that point she should have resigned. But she didn't.
   My sympathy wears kind of thin at that point... Too bad the court or her superiors couldn't just go over her head and grant permission to her deputies. But you can't always optimize these things. Davis has pretty obviously decided that this isn't about keeping herself out of the loop, but, rather, about blocking licenses for same-sex marriages. So that, I think, is where it's time to draw the damn line in no uncertain terms.
   Or so it seems to me.
   I really do wish we'd have tried civil unions first... It would be notably crazier to deny people access to those. But I suppose it's a fairly safe bet that Davis and others like her would have tried to do so anyway.