No hero
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, September 29 2015
- Written by Bill Harrison
This editorial ran in the 9/11/2015 edition of The Free Press, and is reprinted here with permission from the publication. It is followed by Bill Harrison’s response printed in the 9/25/2015 edition, also reprinted with permission.
Kim Davis is neither a hero nor a martyr in our book.
The sobbing, pious and defiant Kentucky county clerk gained national attention after spending five days in jail rather than issuing marriage licenses to same sex-couples.
Her actions defying a federal court order were both imprudent and ill-advised, despite her claims that “God’s moral law conflicts with (her) job duties” as a public servant in Rowan County, Ky., population 23,600.
Ms. Davis puts us in the mind of the Massive Resistance racists in Virginia who, like Ms. Davis, held elective offices and led the effort to shut down public schools in localities across the state rather than comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s order in 1954 to desegregate public schools.
Their stubborn and blind allegiance to hatred caused many schoolchildren — African-American and white — to suffer without an education. More than 50 years later, Virginia and her people are still paying the price in many ways.
Like those haters, Ms. Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to anybody in Rowan County rather than provide them to gay and lesbian couples.
