Kim Davis: Feature or Bug?

Kim Davis has been released from jail with the admonition that she not interfere with her clerks’ issuing of marriage licenses, including licenses to same-sex couples. However, her lawyers are saying she’s going to block the issuing of licenses as before. So we may not be done with her yet.

I agree with Steve M that there probably are forces within the Republican Party that want Ms. Davis and her homophobic dog whistles to go away. A Rasmussen poll shows that two-thirds of the public think Davis should get over it and issue the licenses. Fox News is not supporting her, it seems. She’s sucking up attention that they’d probably like to re-direct to Hillary Clinton’s emails, and gay-baiting is no longer a winner for Republicans in general elections.

Some  conservative commenters are sympathetic to her, of course, but the talking point that developed over the weekend is that all this Sturm und Drang would go away if the state of Kentucky would change their marriage license regulations so that the licenses would not have to be issued in Davis’s name (apparently the clerks have been issuing licenses without Davis’s name on them, and there is some question about whether that is legal). And yes, that would be a solution, but a federal judge can’t do that, and neither can Davis, unilaterally. So until the Kentucky legislature gets off its ass and offers that remedy, I don’t see that as an out to our current impasse.