They are issuing the licenses without any signature.  That appears to be the crux of the legal dispute.  The plaintiff argues that without the signature the licenses are invalid therefore the judge should rule that the proper way to comply with all of the laws is to allow the clerk to refuse to issue any licenses.

On Sep 10, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Robert W Ahrens <[address removed]> wrote:

Which would make them valid, under the provisions of the law.  I assume that is part of her basis for wanting to disallow her subordinates from using those signed licenses, as she has stated that she doesn't want "her signature" on a license for a gay marriage.

But, again, if she succeeds in stopping the bravest of her subordinates from issuing a license that way, she'll be violating the court's order, sending her back to jail.

And I hope the Federal Marshals take the Oath Keepers' vow to "protect" her from re-arrest seriously, and come down like two tons of bricks on their asses.

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 10, 2015, at 2:27 PM, Mathew Goldstein <[address removed]> wrote:

The clerk is responsible for delegating authority to another employee.  But the signature that appears on the form is always the signature of the clerk, not the delegate.  So the licenses are still issued when the clerk is on leave or otherwise absent, but the signature is always the clerk's signature.

On Sep 10, 2015, at 1:37 PM, Robert W Ahrens <[address removed]> wrote:

There must be a provision in State law, since one explanation I saw noted that if a clerk is absent, there is provision for alternatives to issue those licenses.  Since she WAS absent, albeit in jail, I would assume such provisions should kick in to provide for the legality of licenses issued in her absence.  It isn't like no licenses could be issued if she took a day off!

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 10, 2015, at 12:55 PM, Mathew Goldstein <[address removed]> wrote:

Regarding "I wonder if Ms Davis had deep thoughts about the implications..."  Any responsible judge is going to ask that question.  I am skeptical that the plaintiffs are offering a good answer that will permit a pragmatic judge to rule in their favor.

The plaintiff claims that without Kim Davis signature the licenses are invalid.  I do not know the details of the Kentucky laws, but on its face that sounds like a plausible claim.  Why would a signature be needed if it was not required?  A signatures is usually considered to be optional only when the regulations explicitly says it is optional.  If this is true then the plaintiff has a potentially valid claim that it violates her constitutional rights for her signature to appear on same gender licenses, notwithstanding the counter-argument that she is being selective in her interpretation of the bible since she arguably has a constitutional right to whatever biblical interpretation she adopts.  The obvious problem for the judge with this is that the remedy would be that no licenses can be issued and this result appears to conflict with the Supreme Court decision. 

In theory a safe way to continue issuing the licenses would be to switch to someone else's signature, which presumably is not being done because there is no provision in the laws to do that.  If the Governor intervened to try to change the signor that could raise additional legal questions to litigate.  I am skeptical that the judge will think it is appropriate to order the Governor to do that.  So I think this a dead end too.

So I think the most likely outcome is that the judges will override the 'no signature invalidates in the license' claim on the grounds that there is also a legal requirement that the licenses be issued and that requirement has priority over the law that the signature is required.  The judge may say that the state seal stamp is sufficient to validate the licenses.  If the context were different such that there was no conflict between having the signature and issuing the licenses then the same judge may rule that the signature is legally required.  But context matters in law as in life generally.

On Sep 10, 2015, at 8:28 AM, Mark Sibert <[address removed]> wrote:

I wonder if Ms Davis had deep thoughts about the implications, or her decision was a whim?  I worked releasing prisoners and found many heinous criminals being released just because their sentence was up.  Would some of them do the same thing once released?  You bet, and the majority were back in jail, on average, within 9 months (the least parole I heard from a colleague was 45 minutes).  But I had to let them go, despite my "sense of community duty” (aka - civil religion).  My wife is a JW and she has no issue with giving blood transfusions if the doctor ordered it.  She figures that that person’s god should deal with the consequences.

my take on Davis is "religious liberty” is for those few who choose it, the law is for all, like it or not.

Mark w s

On Sep 6, 2015, at 6:45 PM, Mathew Goldstein <[address removed]> wrote:

If there had been a 6 month delay between the SCOTUS decision and the enforcement of the decision, then if Kim Davis was subsequently jailed in March we would say she could have found other employment, paid her bills, and stayed out of jail.  Without that all we can do is say is that she is at fault for wanting to retain her employment while refusing to implement a newly revised law that she rejects.  Telling government employees they must implement a newly changed law that they reject or go to jail or be unemployed is a harsh demand.  An enforcement delay in contexts like this, by giving impacted government employees a reasonable opportunity to find other employment and avoid jail, would be better.

On Sep 6, 2015, at 4:49 PM, Mary Bellamy <[address removed]> wrote:

I am not happy about the people mocking Kim Davis because of the way she looks or for her family situation. I know that if she had been a man she might have been subject to similar mockery, but the problem is that women are almost always judged for their looks and their personal choices. I want her to be judged for her actions alone as men oftentimes are. 

On Sunday, September 6, 2015, Don Wharton <[address removed]> wrote:

As everyone knows I see the GLBT rights revolution as being the effective spear point of the secular revolution. We have to love the insanity in Kentucky. Obviously we can have some compassion for those who could not get their marriage licenses. However, the national news feed that came from it is of vast benefit to us all. It makes it clear that Christianity can enable stupid and reprehensible bigotry. We have several GOP Presidential candidates who fully support this insanity.

Kim Davis has become the face of Christian bigotry in the same way that Bull Connor and George Wallace become the face of anti-black bigotry in a prior time. I have seen a number of secular blog posts that decry comments about her looks. There was one photo of her with a bad hair day. It had comments on it saying, “She should support GLBT rights. Then she would be able to find someone to do her hair.”

Obviously this has nothing to do with the legal or moral issues at hand. I have no personal desire to hold her up to ridicule. However, I have not the slightest problem with her becoming a symbol of ridicule in this way. People are emotional. Very few either understand or support the more cerebral discussions that we share here. I am quite happy with the content of fundamentalist Christianity bringing to mind an image of this ridicule. It would vastly advance the enterprise of getting mean spirited bigotry and stupidity out of our culture.

Mike Huckabee is now claiming that Christianity has become criminalized.  If his understanding is that Christianity demands that the rights of others be abrogated then fine, it fully deserves to be criminalized.  This is the relevant point for the culture war to be waged.

To some extent I want to apologize to Mathew for not responding to his last thoughtful reply on the Waking Up thread. We need to put our focus on the things that matter. GLBT rights matter. War and peace matter. I asked Lee, my significant other, if she had heard of the hard problem and did she have an opinion on it? She replied that she thought she had heard of it and wasn't it something about mathematics? My guess is that a relative low percentage of our population know about the hard problem or care. Lee has almost certainly read more books than 99% of the people on our elist. There are a great many fields in which she is vastly more informed than I am. What is the harm that can be avoided or benefit that can be achieved by discussing the so called “hard problem.” I doubt that my profound contempt for a problem that does not even exist will convince anyone. All any supporters of the “hard problem” have is their confusion. That is all they can possibly have. The major harm to conscious entities will come when computer systems become much more conscious than we are. Frankly I don't much care about the future bigotry that we may have toward such computer systems.

I do care about GLBT right. I do care about war and peace. I do care about what will move the wider society in a secular direction so that society as whole is more rational.

Don

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