The Republican president of the Kentucky state Senate has asked a federal judge to withhold his ruling ordering a county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Republican Senate President Robert Stivers says U.S. District Judge David Bunning needs to give the state legislature time to pass a law that would exempt Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis from having to issue marriage licenses. The state legislature is not in session and won't be until January. Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has refused to call for a special session, arguing it would waste taxpayer money for an issue that only affects one clerk.
"The Supreme Court ruling has completely obliterated the definition of marriage and the process for obtaining a marriage license in Kentucky," Stivers said in a news release. "The General Assembly will be compelled to amend many sections of Kentucky law, not just for the issuance of marriage licenses, to comply with the recent Supreme Court decision."
Stivers says nearly all of Kentucky's laws governing marriage are invalid following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. For example, Kentucky's state law requires a couple seeking a marriage license to apply for one in the county "in which the female resides" or at another county so long as the woman applies for it.
"(The Supreme Court decision) clearly contemplates marriages that do not involve a female, as well as marriages that involve two females," Stivers' attorney wrote to the court. "It is unclear at this juncture what the proper venue for the issuance of a license for same sex marriages is after (the Supreme Court's decision.)
Mike Huckabee was saying something similar, that same-sex marriage licenses remain invalid until the states choose to "enable" them. That's complete hogwash, what Stivers is saying is that no marriages in Kentucky are legal right now until the state legislature amends the laws to comply with the Supreme Court.
It's idiotic, but that's where we are right now in this mess.
[UPDATE]: At the hearing today, the judge jailed Davis, saying that he didn't believe fines would compel her to obey the Supreme Court's ruling. Sen. Rand Paul is very unhappy with this.
"I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberties," the GOP presidential candidate and outspoken advocate of states' rights told CNN on Thursday, shortly after Davis' fate was decided by a U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning.
"This is really the problem when from on high we decide to get involved on a federal level with something that has always been a local issue," Paul said.
Weird. Guess Paul is now against federal abortion restriction then, huh.
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