Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision.
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees.
In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.
You’re not free to enforce your religion on others as a public servant.
Yes you are. Crime is legal now as long as you’re a conservative
The trick here is for them to declare which version is correct, then let them fight over it. Catholic? Presbyterian? Mormon? If all of them, I now have 10 wives, drink all day, go to a priest for forgiveness, sacrifice goats in public, etc. Let loose the Kracken.
Supreme Court: We’re public servants and we’re free to enforce our religion on others.
Yes you are! The Fuhrer has decreed it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/28/trump-federal-employees-preach-faith-work-00480696
That’s bad, but it’s different.
Enter Trump
Now it is!
Christians can now. Like literally. By
royal decreeexecutive order.Nope, that EO allows them to pray at work. Still bad, but doesn’t apply here.
No it allows them to proselytize to coworkers
we will see them be hyprocrites when people start denying CHRISTIANS any services, they will make exception to the rules.
I genuinely do not understand how this was ever a case. You are an employee at an office that provides a service. You are a representative of that organization. And, as a civil service employee, I would expect you are obligated by the laws of that county or state to facilitate the services offered.
Davis, as the Rowan County Clerk in 2015, was the sole authority tasked with issuing marriage licenses on behalf of the government under state law.
ON BEHALF OF
Regardless if you’re in this position or you’re the president, you are obligated by the state or federal constitution to operate as a representative of that jurisdiction’s laws.
If she took on this job while knowing it would conflict with her religious views, or the laws changed in a matter that conflicted with her views, she should have notified the county and she should have been denied or removed from that position. Although, I’m sure that raises a different case in denying someone employment based on their religion.
I once asked my mother if it would be ok for a Muslim or Jewish deli employee to refuse to sell her pork. She said they shouldn’t be in that job if it conflicted with their religious beliefs. I tried to tie that to this and she sort of shut down rather than argue against it or accept it.
We don’t have a relationship anymore. She voted for the shithead every time.
The deli owner can actually deny service to however they want since it’s a private business. They don’t have to serve anyone, but it does look fucking bad if/when they discrininate, but technically they can.
Here, that government employee HAS the obligation to follow the law and act regardless of her own beliefs. Maybe she should instead run a deli…
Your example is very good, in fact, it prouves your mother wrong in 2 different ways.
There’s a big difference between a deli owner and a deli employee. An owner wouldn’t choose to even have pork available to sell if they didn’t want to sell it. If is it available to sell, and an employee chooses not to sell it because of their religious beliefs, that’s definitely a problem, but (as you said) not discrimination, just bad business and the owner should fire them immediately.
Better example: a Hindu public servant refuses to approve a license for a cattle abbatoir on religious grounds.
That might be due to our morals feeling like a rational thing while they are mostly learned emotional reactions (that we rationalize afterwards). We do not need a society that self-reflects on a level a level where they would understand and thus we do not educate on this self-awareness. And by ‘we’ i mean the Owner-Class.
I used to shop at a butcher’s where a Muslim employee worked. Once, chitchatting I asked him if he didn’t have a problem with cutting pork, and he answered that he didn’t, he just didn’t eat it.
I guess there are degrees of strictness.
This guy actually knows and adheres to the rules. All those others who refuse to touch it/sell it/… ? Posers hiding behind their convictions. But there is nothing in the Quran about not being allowed to touch pork or sell it.
Technically touching pork breaks your Wudu, but so does farting so it’s not a huge deal, you just need to wash your hands afterwards.
I’m horrified that your farting technique necessitates washing your hands afterwards.
It’s funnier than that because in one of the hadiths it says, to quote:
“Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “The prayer of a person who does Hadath (passes urine, stool or wind) is not accepted till he performs the ablution.” A person from Hadaramout asked Abu Huraira, “What is ‘Hadath’?” Abu Huraira replied, " ‘Hadath’ means the passing of wind.”"
““The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was asked about a man who felt something during his prayer – should he stop praying? He said, ‘No, not unless you hear a sound or detect an odour.’””
So if you let out one of those silent farts that don’t smell, it doesn’t count.
I’ll just add it to the pile of reasons why I’ll be damned eternally.
And level-headedness.
We literally made a law that says bartenders and restaurants can’t refuse to serve alcohol to pregnant women if they order it. While not based on religion, I feel like this sets a pretty strong precedent.
That’s not a comparable situation though. There’s no reasonable expectation that those places would sell you pork*. The employee who works there isn’t (not) doing anything that conflicts with the business’ offerings.
Even if a muslim employee at a barbecue restaurant were to deny a customer a rack of ribs, the restaurant is under no obligation to serve you.
This issue is about a representative of the county rejecting the county’s obligations.
*Edit: After re-reading the comment I was replying to, I see it’s about a person who is Muslim or Jewish working at a deli, not a person working at a Muslim or Jewish deli. The comparison is closer than I had argued against but still not the same because one is public and one is private.
If the place carries pork and a specific employee refused to give it to you …
That’s directly applicable. It’s an exact equivalent situation. You’re just replacing nouns
It’s not at all directly applicable.
There is no constitutional obligation for that employee to sell you pork. They’re representing laws that exist to benefit the tax paying public.
A worker at a barbecue is under no legal obligation to sell you pork. They may one under an obligation of their employment but that’s a private contract. The shop itself is under no obligation to sell you anything at all.
You’re getting bogged down in specifics that are not relevant to the metaphor.
A person, who is NOT in a position to determine who/what their employer’s organization will or won’t serve, is making decisions they lack the authority to do. And if they can’t handle the responsibilities of their position, should find new employment.
That’s it. You’re over-complicating it.
One of the drawbacks of the first amendment is that the courts can and will bend over backwards the moment somebody says the magic phrase “it is my sincerely held religious belief.”
I don’t think religion should be a valid reason for things. If you can’t justify the thing without religion, it’s probably not a good idea.
“I want to take an hour a day to pray” for example, you can get there with a religious argument. But you can also get there via “people should be entitled to breaks during the day to use as they desire. That’s good for them and productivity overall”
I don’t think religion should be a valid reason for things. If you can’t justify the thing without religion, it’s probably not a good idea.
I 100% agree - however we both live in the real world where it’s a very big deal to many people. Telling them to just ignore their deeply held faith is simply not an option.
I’m generally fine with allowing some provisions for religious faith. Time off for holidays, allowing the closing of streets for celebrations, requiring reasonable consideration for dietary needs, etc. But it definitely needs to be balanced with the greater societal good.
In this case, however, this cretin is requiring that she be allowed to simply ignore laws she doesn’t like. And that is definitely a bridge too far. So I fully expect the SCOTUS to just rule in her favor.
we both live in the real world where it’s a very big deal to many people. Telling them to just ignore their deeply held faith is simply not an option.
Definitely citation needed for these being “deeply held” beliefs. These people are just using religion as a cover for their bigotry and have zero qualms about violating the rest of the tenets of their religion. Case in point is Kim Davis having been married four separate times now, while claiming that allowing two men to marry somehow destroys the sanctity of marraige.
Definitely citation needed for these being “deeply held” beliefs. These people are just using religion as a cover for their bigotry and have zero qualms about violating the rest of the tenets of their religion. Case in point is Kim Davis having been married four separate times now, while claiming that allowing two men to marry somehow destroys the sanctity of marraige.
Professors of ethical philosophy aren’t more ethical than other people either. Believing in something and doing things are different.
I’m not really sure what you mean here.
In this case we have a woman claiming to have “deeply held religious beliefs” about marriage when it comes to preventing other people from getting married while at the same time having several divorces under her belt. Her actions dont mimic her beliefs when it comes to her own life so they can’t be deeply held beliefs. These beliefs only seem to matter when she has no skin in the game by applying them to other people’s lives.
This is no different than one of those anti-gay politicians who gets caught blowing dudes in a public restroom. They aren’t really their deeply held beliefs they’re just lies to give cover to their bigotry as I mentioned previously.
I’m not really sure what you mean here.
Hypocrisy doesn’t mean one doesn’t believe what they believe. People compartmentalize. They carve out exceptions and make excuses. We’re pretty judgey about others while accepting our own flaws.
And this is not limited to religion.
With one caveat: the religion must be Christianity
It is my sincerely held religious belief that religion has no place in government.
My religion forbids traffic lights and speed limits. Also I’m allowed to mess with Texas. Divine mandate supercedes mere mortals laws.
MS kimmy have been fighting this for over 10years, lawsuit after lawsuit, plus she likely has financialy backing from right wing groups funding her lawyers. you ponder why they havnt dropped thier pursuit, its her financial backing.
I get what you are saying and totally agree and if they are the sole decider the person in the position should be 100% neutral. And she should have resigned if they couldn’t do the job. You can’t expect a devout Hindu to work for a slaughterhouse and process cows.
But on the other hand we have had so many cases where employees have sued and won because an employer was trying to treat their employees equally but they hired the occasional employee demanding extra leeway for religious holidays or prayer time. So this case is pretty important for employers that provide religious exemptions.
But yeah this lady is a piece of shit and needs to lose this case and disappear from the spotlight.
Accommodating holidays or time for prayers is very different than accommodating an employee refusing to ever do the test they are paid to do.
Yeah. I don’t really blame this woman at all. It shouldn’t have been her sole responsibility. I would venture to guess though that even the people above her shared her opinions.
Although, I’m sure that raises a different case in denying someone employment based on their religion.
Oh they would for sure sue the state over it, but it would be denying employment based on that person not perform their legal duties.
The accommodation the employer needs to make is to put her in a position where her religious values would not interfere with her work.
But given that she likely took the job for the very purpose of forcing her religious values onto her work, she should have a legal obligation to STFU and just do her fucking job. This honestly would be no different if a Buddhist refused to issue conceal carry permits because they believe in non-violence.
If you disagree with the law, you lobby to change the law. Not fucking be the arbiter of the law in your administrative role.
The state accommodated her beliefs by removing her from the employment of the agency that handles marriages.
She’s free to find another job
So what you’re saying is I could get myself elected sheriff and then refuse to do the job because I don’t believe in it?
No. I’m explicitly saying the exact opposite.
I don’t think even this Court is going to grant cert. They need to save what’s left of their legitimacy to rule on more important emergency docket matters.
Thomas had stated a couple years ago that he wanted another go at this decision.
Interracial marriage is on the table too with these fascists.
And Clarence Thomas will gleefully vote to kill it
She can’t take half during the divorce if your marriage is deemed illegal, null and void.
Whilst married to a white jan6 individual.
Clarence Thomas: this is fine, rules do not apply to me or my white wife Virginia.
i have a feeling he wants to divorce her, he just needs a good excuse to do it.
Clarence cant wait to divorce ginni thomas.
If they’re going to open the door to any government employee being able to refuse to do their job as directed on religious grounds, this country is going to grind to a halt.
Just kidding, we all know that with the current court and administration, this will only allow people with the “right” religion to refuse.
An in-group that the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group that the law binds but does not protect. Conservatism in a nutshell.
this country is going to grind to a halt
In large part, it’s already been on that road for a while. De-industrialization, hyper-financialization, launching a pogrom against migrants, sky high tariffs fucking up the supply chain…
This is one more bail of straw on the camel’s overloaded back.
We’ll just quickly end up at taxes are against my religion. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
I think the government should be required to give you a receipt when you pay taxes detailing what everything will be spend on.
Could we just get government out of the marriage game? It seems to be the source of all the problems. They simply shouldn’t care.
Even if we don’t this is such a simple concept: Marriage is a contract. The requirements for a contract is consenting adults. How can they make gender determine who can sign a contract? That would be unreasonable.
I think you’re second point is more important. The religious part of marriage is actually meaningless in the eyes of the law even today, you still need to apply for a marriage certificate with the government.
I think we just need to extend that to just be a cohabitation/shared asset contract for any two+ people. It makes a lot of legal sense to have a defined “family unit” for medical/legal/financial reasons, but it shouldn’t overlap with religious concepts.
Religion is a monstrous evil.
But Jesus said gays bad!
He didn’t say anything about love!
Oh, wait…
I’d disagree here. Jesus was a Rabbi. And Rabbi are usually required to be married.
But the early church was extremely anti-woman.
Mary Magdalene is always portrayed as a whore who just sort of hung around.
But she seems to be more important than that. Especially in the dead sea scrolls.
Paul, or Saul, on the other hand, seems to have been the source of the anti-woman aspects of the early church.
As someone raised in the Baptist faith, but got the hell out, Baptists fucking LOVE Saul/Paul and he’s basically 60%+ of their entire schtick. Largely because he was such a staunch stickler of a person. I mean God supposedly made him blind so he’d stop being an asshole.
It didn’t work apparently. He just read the writing on the wall and changed his strategy for enacting his loathsome world view.
dead sea scrolls
You are conflating the dead sea scrolls with the Nag Hammadi library. The Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain any Christian texts, only Jewish texts from around the time of Jesus. The Nag Hammadi library contains a number of texts typically described as “gnostic” and some of these include teachings attributed to Mary Magdalene.
I do get the two confused, yes. Thank you.
i thought jesus was trans though, as parthenogenesis necessitates a female offspring
si would be eve, as she’s a clone of Adam.
okay see this is my first problem. that means he would taste great. I’ve tasted their jesus. jesus is dry and crumbly. i’ve also tasted ribs. are ribs dry and crumbly?
I really don’t get the Jesus-as-nasty-dry-cracker shit. If they’d made him into a Little Debbie’s zebra cake, I’d still be a churchgoer today.
But it’s stress, pain and suffering for those they don’t like!!
Of course they are. And of course that stupid bitch Kim Davis is involved.
Also: how could Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do this to us?
Also: really glad protest voters sat this one out, I can’t begin to imagine how much worse this would be under Kamala /s
Also, I’m glad we dodged the bullet of Biden being so old, because something something argle bargle “gerontocracy”. As if age is the fucking problem here, LOL. But people are so very easily set against one another over stupid stuff so that elitists like Taco can skip off with all the loot…
Imagine that. A genocide on two million people but gay people can get married! That would be so great!
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The tide on Israel is rapidly turning thanks to Trump being in charge.
Now you know that if you try running a genocidaire again you will not win.
Wait, you think Trump is being anti-genocide? The guy who relished the concept of ‘Trump Gaza’ after they get those pesky Palestinians out of there? Who said explicitly it should be given over to luxury real estate developers instead of Palestinians?
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Reading is difficult.
Trump turned this into a partisan issue. Suddenly Liberals are willing to oppose genocide because Trump is in favor.
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What has Trump done to turn the tide?
Having Liberals oppose everything Trump does.
The tide on Israel is rapidly turning thanks to Trump being in charge.
Bahahahahahahahah. Right.
Israel is closer to completely the eradication than ever thanks to this administration. Are you dumb? The pedo Dipshit is taking about building a hotel on the stolen land. How so you get “tide is turning” from that?
Yeah, so let’s put the fascists in charge. Braindead take.
Fascists commit genocide. Fascists were already in charge.
Saw this was a .world account. Come over to dbzero or somewhere sane(er).
dbzero is as bad as .world
Or, you know, don’t be a genocidal maniac.
You elected one.
A Genocidal maniac like Trump.
Trump was openly cheering the genocide well before the election.
So what, Biden’s policy was unlimited genocide and so too was Kamala’s.
What would have been super cool and democratic is actually holding a primary election for presidential nominee, after Biden’s brain fully melted. But nope, can’t have democracy in America. We only anoint genocidal maniacs now.
People say that Biden was 100% on board with the genocide. But then people are stupid.
The main issue was that Biden wasn’t acting fast enough for the dumbasses who never actually read the articles.
And Harris was not Biden. She was just unwilling to criticize her boss while he was still her boss.
Definitely can’t let the good get in the way of the perfect. That would be the true tragedy.
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Good thing you stopped the genocide, then.
You did it industrystandard, Gaza is saved! Peace in the Middle East! Hurray!
Can this bitch just fucking die already? I’m tired of seeing her face in the news every couple years
Who is the injured party here? She clearly refused to do her job.
You don’t understand, she was forced to undergo social contact with… shudder GAYS!
Injured parties are for legal systems that actually care about the truth.
See several of the recent Supreme Court cases with astroturf plaintiffs and made up defendants.
Because it’s super easy to get the ruling you want when no one is on the other side to call bullshit on your claims.
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What a horrible, terrible, evil piece of shit of a person. A lot of people serve other people they don’t like every day, it’s called having a fucking job, no need to make a federal fucking case out of it you stupid selfish childish pious asshole.
Not ”a lot people," literally EVERYBODY has to deal with people they don’t like, every single fucking day.
What’s with these MAGAs, who are so entitled they think the entire world owes them a life without anything slightly unpleasant crossing their paths, or they will KILL YOU?
I worked in retail and there was this one idiot that ended up getting fired because he couldn’t get over his racism. He was moaning about immigrants on Facebook afterwards. He didn’t lose his job to immigrants, he lost his job because he was being rude to Asian people who definitely weren’t interested in his job, as they almost certainly already had better paying once.
These people are their own worst enemies.
What a hateful piece of shit.
Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!
Also, what’s going on with the Epstein Files? Ya know, while we’re on the subject of “Dead Cat Theory”
RELEASE THE EPSTINE FILES
You work for the government, you are acting as the government, paid for by taxes from your constituents.
You do not get to decide which laws to follow. Fuck off Kim.
She has no reason to speak of morals when you look at how poorly she practices what she screeches.
Another 3 to 6 decision then. It’s getting kind of repetitive.
Can we get someone who believes in Jakub elected as county clerk somewhere in the US South? Then they can deny marriage licenses to all the white people for being inhuman.
I can’t wait until Clarence Thomas decides in favor of legislation that bans interracial marriages. I can’t wait!
Spy magazine back in the early '90s ran a great cartoon captioned “Clarence Thomas greets the morning” which showed him on his front porch bending down to pick up the newspaper next to a negro stable boy lawn statue.
Yooooo… This bitch is still doing the same, heinous shit? A decade later? Why don’t these pieces of shit just get fucking lives or hobbies or something? They’re like goddamned ghouls, hanging around and smelling of shit. Like. Fuck. GO AWAY.
Methinks she’s being funded by those organizations.
This has the particular stink of Citizens United for sire.
