'Traditional Marriage Parade' divides rural Iowa town

Photo by Sandy Millar, Unsplash

A Baptist pastor of small-town Ottumwa in Iowa challenged the fairness of a city council proclamation to celebrate Pride month while other groups like veterans went unnoticed, Joe Barrett of The Wall Street Journal reported.

When the council members explained they only passed resolutions of this nature that were brought to their attention, Pastor Travis Decker decided to create his own “Traditional Marriage Parade” – and he wanted to get a proclamation from the city for it.

This request led to “weeks of emotional public meetings, social-media battles and questions about whether the council should have proclamations at all,” Barrett wrote. 

Pastor Chris Childs from Grace Methodist Church noted that the conflict highlights the fraught political environment that has divided America everywhere.

And the result? The city council decided that no one gets anything. A new policy was created to prevent controversial proclamations from being passed in the future.

“Pride or traditional marriage proclamations probably won’t make the cut,” council member Cara Galloway told the Wall Street Journal.

Leaving the United Methodist Church can be more harmful for churches in rural communities

Thousands of United Methodist Churches have disaffiliated.
(Photo by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder)

Amid ongoing debate over sexuality and Christian teaching, the United Methodist Church (UMC) faces more member tensions and congregations seeking to disaffiliate from the organization. The effects could be harder on rural communities," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. “Disaffiliation, the complex process a congregation may use to leave the United Methodist denomination, is a sore topic. Most churches that recently split from the UMC did so over concerns that the denomination may adopt a more affirming position on homosexuality."

The Rev. Katie Black had been serving her congregation “for less than a year when a member knocked on her office door and told her the congregation had been praying about withdrawing from the denomination,” Melotte writes. Black told her, “I had heard a lot of stories about churches [disaffiliating] in bigger cities and it becoming a very contentious and ugly fight. But this is a small town. There is no room for us to be breaking up friendships and families.”

Disagreements over whether to allow or not allow gay ordination, gay marriage and LGBTQ+ inclusion have tested the denomination. "Since 2019, thousands of congregations have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church. . . but many rural churches found hope by offering refuge and reconciliation," Melotte explains. "When a church splits in a tight-knit rural community, the pain can ripple throughout the entire town."

Ken Carter, bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference, told Melotte, "More of the churches that are disaffiliating tend to be rural." Melotte reports, "Bishop Carter said that disaffiliation skews rural because of the cumulative effects of the pandemic and political polarization. Polarization worsened, for example, when debates flared about whether masks should be worn in church and how the church should respond to racism, if it should respond at all."

The Rev. Truman Stagg, a UMC minister in Louisiana, commenting on the division, told Melotte, "We should just stop it and just realize that it’s all about loving people. Whoever you are, your sin might be the same as mine, or your sin might be different from mine or what I call a sin. You might not. But that’s for God to straighten out.”

LGBTQ+ Eastern Kentuckians are refuting Appalachian stereotype of intolerance, creating a regional community

Cara Ellis, left, at Pikeville Pride's booth at the Hillbilly Days
Festival in Pikeville, Ky. (Photo by Ryan C. Hermens, Herald-Leader)

LGBTQ+ Eastern Kentuckians aren't big-city transplants, as you might think; they're native Appalachians reaching out to break stereotypes and form a supportive community, reports Rick Childress of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Childress' visit to the "Pikeville Pride" booth during Hillbilly Days, Pikeville's annual festival "celebrating all things Appalachia," provides a good example. "Members of Pikeville Pride sat at a booth strewn with rainbow flags and banners. The grassroots organization works to highlight Eastern Kentucky's LGBTQ+ community. . . . In a town and region long assumed to be unwelcome to LGBTQ+ people, members were met with honest questions, smiles, thank yous and even a 'grandma' who got their grandson their 'first pride flag,' said Cara Ellis, who is Pikeville Pride's president and a Pikeville native." Ellis said, "I never thought we would have this in this town."

Outreach allows the group to support young people who may struggle. "It's never been necessarily easy to be gay in the mountains, and a ratcheting up of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and legislation, both in Kentucky and nationally, will make life harder for those who are out in rural communities," Childress writes. "The suicide rate among LGBTQ youth is much higher than their peers. A national survey conducted last year by the Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis help for LGBTQ youth, found that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year. . . . But that suicide rate goes down if students come from households that affirm their gender identity, attend an LGBTQ-affirming school or live in an accepting community."

The group's presence at events like Hillbilly Days provides a human face inviting conversations that educate the region. "They also defied a common misconception that Ellis said she's encountered in her work with Pikeville Pride," Childress reports. "Many assume that those in the group have moved in from bigger cities and aren't native Appalachians. Ellis told him, "It's like, no, we've been born here. . . . We've been raised here. We're from here; we stay here." Childress adds, "According to Jonathan Coleman, a historian and co-founder of the Faulkner Morgan Archive, a nonprofit that saves and shares Kentucky's LGBTQ history, the typical narrative about Eastern Kentucky is incomplete. Coleman said: "The story of what it is to be queer in Eastern Kentucky is always a really flattened-out, simple narrative. . . . You leave if you can, as soon as you can. You're traumatized, and then you try to escape. That, of course, is not accurate for lots and lots of folks."

Pikeville's 2020 population was 7,754.
(Sperling's Best Places map)

Pikeville Pride continues to provide a supportive community "especially in a place where an accepting group of people hasn't always been easy to find," Childress reports. "The group started in 2017 as an organized counter-protest to a white-nationalist march in the city's downtown. After that protest, about 20-25 people continued to meet. They decided to put together Pikeville's first pride event in 2018 in an attempt to 'highlight the diversity and inclusion that we actually do have here in Pikeville, that maybe people don't realize,' Ellis said. . . . . Tonya Jones, who, along with her wife, has fostered multiple LGBTQ+ youth in Pike County, was among the original group that started the organization, said they had a free hugs booth at the first event." Jones told him, "I had someone just come up and just wrap their arms around me and just start bawling. Because they said it was the first time anyone accepted them for who they truly were."

LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations spring up in rural areas

Pride parade in Murray, Ky. (WKMS photo by Matt Markgraf)

Rural towns across the country are increasingly putting on, or allowing, LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations.

"Advocates say it’s a hopeful sign of shifting public attitudes toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents in Kentucky and other parts of rural America, where more than 2.9 million LGBTQ residents live," Chris Kenning reports for the Louisville Courier Journal.

In Kentucky alone, Pride festivals have sprung up in nearly 20 towns and rural communities across the state in recent years. Murray held its first ever Pride march last Saturday, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The event was peaceful and well-attended, though there were a few protesters, Matt Markgraf reports for WKMS-FM.

M.C. Lampe, the LGBT coordinator at Murray State University, told Markgraf that it's important for people to see that "there are people here that are LGBTQ-identifying and are supportive, because it can feel very lonely in a small town." Lampe, who moved to Murray from Louisville two years ago, said "I've been so impressed with the work being done on a rural level. More, honestly, than I ever did in a city."

Athens, Ohio, recently held its weeklong Pride Fest for the third year in a row, Keri Johnson reports for The Post, a student-run publication of Ohio University in Athens. Chris Nevil, an Athens native and assistant executive director at Southeastern Ohio Rainbow Alliance, said Pride "used to be a big city thing . . . So it's important now to see pride in smaller, more rural areas."

Franklin County in western Massachusetts is also holding its third annual Pride festival this year, Melina Bourdeau reports for the Greenfield Recorder. The first one was fairly small and quickly organized, but this year the event is larger and has more support from local businesses.

In La Grande, Oregon, near the northwestern corner of the state, student organizers from the Mountain Queers club at Eastern Oregon University are organizing the town's second annual Pride festival, Andrew Jankowski reports for Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon. "I think people who aren't from more rural areas don't realize that it's not necessarily outright homophobia that we have to deal with so much as just feeling invisible," the club president, who goes by C, told Jankowski. "We've got queer people, of course, but the sort of thing that Mountain Queers is doing where we're just out there, not being subtle, celebrating our existence, is something you don't really see in Eastern Oregon much, and that's why we're doing it."

The increase in rural Pride events reflects changing attitudes. A recent Pew Presearch Center report "showed sharp increases in support for LGBTQ people and issues since 2004 among many groups," Kenning reports. "Nationally, about 52% of rural residents support same-sex marriage (compared with 64% of urban residents)" according to a 2017 Public Religion Research Institute survey.

Attempted Vatican 'coup' rooted in accuser's setup of pope's meeting with clerk who refused to issue same-sex licenses

Pope Francis and County Clerk Kim Davis (Images from CNN)

For an archbishop whose accusations are splitting the Roman Catholic Church, his unhealable breach with Pope Francis began when he arranged for the pope to meet the rural county clerk who had gone to jail for contempt of court after she refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, reports Jason Horowitz of The New York Times.

"An abuse survivor with whom Francis has spoken at length said the pope recently told him" that Archbishop Carlo Viganò, then the papal nuncio (ambassador) to the U.S. "nearly sabotaged the visit" of the pope in 2015 by arranging a meet-and-greet with Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, the Times reports. Davis said Francis told her, "Thank you for your courage." But the Vatican said later that the meeting shouldn't be considered an expression of support for her stand. Davis, a former Democrat, is running for re-election this fall as a Republican.

Abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz quoted Pope Francis as saying of Davis and Viganò, “I didn’t know who that woman was, and he snuck her in to say hello to me — and of course they made a whole publicity out of it. And I was horrified, and I fired that nuncio.” Actually, as CNN reports, "Two years later, Francis quietly accepted Viganò's resignation. . . . During his trip to the United States, the pope had tried to stay above the country's culture wars. Viganò foisted Francis right into the fray."

Viganò (Pool photo by Rex Arbogast)

Last week Viganò wrote a 7,000-word letter that called for the pope's resignation, "accusing him of covering up sexual abuse and giving comfort to a ' homosexual current' in the Vatican," Horowitz notes. "The letter exposed deep ideological clashes, with conservatives taking up arms against Francis’ inclusive vision of a church that is less focused on divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality. But Archbishop Viganò — who himself has been accused of hindering a sexual misconduct investigation in Minnesota — also seems to be settling old scores. . . . Known for his short temper and ambition, Archbishop Viganò has clashed with superiors who stunted his ascent in the church and has played a key role in some of the most stunning Vatican scandals of recent times."

Francis said, "I will not say a single word about this. I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have the sufficient journalistic ability to make your conclusions. It's an act of trust." CNN Religion Editor Burke writes, "While journalists dig for the truth, and the pope keeps silent, Vigano's letter has emerged as a sort of Rorschach test for Catholics: Many conservative Catholics say the pope must go. Liberal Catholics accuse the archbishop of launching a coup d'etat against his boss."

UPDATE, Sept. 2: Viganò is contradicting the pope's account of the Washington meeting, saying "The pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience." At the meeting, Viganò wrote, Francis "embraced her affectionately, thanked her for her courage and invited her to persevere."

Mike Pence says he's a small-town guy, and he is; 'knows what end of the cow does what'

"I'm really just a small-town boy" who "grew up with a cornfield in the backyard," Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said after Donald Trump introduced him as his choice for vice president today.

Michael Barbaro and Monica Davey report for The New York Times: “Leslie Lenkowsky, a former professor at Indiana University who has known Mr. Pence for 20 years, said that in an age of business-minded governors who deliberately avoid touchy social issues, "Mike sees himself as a champion of a very culturally conservative set of values that represent small-town Middle America." . . . His conservatism, friends said, is firmly rooted in his Indiana childhood, a postcard from a tranquil Midwest of the 1960s. The son of a gas station manager, he was a quiet altar boy whose favorite childhood memory was playing in a neighborhood creek.”

As a talk-radio show host in 1998, "Long after government regulators had confirmed the lethal consequences of cigarette smoking, Mike Pence mocked their warnings as 'hysteria'," the reporters write. "And long after Republicans’ war on big government was fading, [Congressman] Pence defiantly opposed his own party over the creation of signature programs like No Child Left Behind and a Medicare prescription drug benefit. . . . He is so abstemious that he once declared that to avoid temptation, he would never appear anywhere alcohol was served unless his wife was with him. This has earned Mr. Pence, 57, both the admiration of Republican voters who identify with his homespun manner and the frustration of outsiders who see him as a dangerous anachronism."

Many small-town folks would describe themselves as Pence typically does: “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” The reporters note, "Those animating forces were at the center of the most consequential – and controversial – decision Mr. Pence made as governor: signing a 2015 law that could have made it easier for religious conservatives to refuse service to gay couples just as same-sex marriage was spreading across the country. The national firestorm generated by the law was so fierce that sports leagues, trade groups and technology companies threatened to boycott Mr. Pence’s state, forcing him to revise the law in a compromise that infuriated both sides of the debate."

Trump's selection of Pence was cheered by agriculture interests. “He is truly agriculture's dream candidate,” Don Villwock, who recently retired after more than a decade as president of the Indiana Farm Bureau, told Agri-Pulse in an email. National Cattlemen's Beef Association lobbyist Colin Woodall told Oklahoma Farm Report that when Pence was on the House Agriculture Committee, “He was very engaged and willing to help us on several things. We're encouraged it's somebody [with] their hand on the pulse of agriculture and … really probably knows what end of the cow does what.”

The biggest gap between Trump and Pence may be on trade," Spencer Chase reports for Agri-Pulse. "Pence has been a strong supporter of trade agreements, voting in favor of the Korean Free Trade Agreement in 2011 and the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement. In April of 2015, Pence sent a letter to Indiana's congressional delegation urging them to support trade promotion authority, which gives a president the authority to negotiate trade agreements and submit them to Congress for an amendment-free, up or down vote. TPA has since been approved, and the administration has wrapped up negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement with Pacific Rim countries. The administration is also in the process of negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union."

Clintons have lost Appalachia to Trump; Hillary apologizes to laid-off coal miner for jobs remark

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is not enjoying the same success in Kentucky and West Virginia her husband Bill Clinton did when he ran for president in 1992 and 1996, Lisa Lerer reports for The Associated Press. The two states—West Virginia's primary is May 10, Kentucky's May 17—favor Donald Trump, especially in the coalfields. Hillary Clinton's own aides "say she’s unlikely to win either Kentucky or West Virginia in the primaries later this month or the general election next fall." (Charleston Gazette-Mail photo by F. Brian Ferguson: Hillary Clinton at a roundtable discussion in Williamson, W.Va.)

Hillary Clinton's unwelcome reception in Eastern Kentucky this week "marks a striking political shift for the Clintons, who’ve long staked their electoral fortunes on working class white voters," Lerer writes. "Her husband won the White House in 1992 by wooing Southern swing voters in places such as Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee, and Hillary Clinton swept all three states in her primary run in 2008 against then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Eight years later, Trump’s connection with those voters could pose a threat to Clinton not only in the coal mining communities of Appalachia she visited on Monday, but also in parts of the Rust Belt and upper Midwest hit hard by the decline of domestic manufacturing."

Lerer adds, "Democrats have lost support in Appalachia as the region has shed jobs in industries such as coal mining and as union membership has declined, said Democratic strategist Dave Saunders. It’s a shift on which Trump has capitalized." Saunders told her, “We’re in a new age of economic populism. Trump: he’s got the right message and he delivers it properly.” Democrats also haven't been helped by supporting gun control and gay marriage, two issues largely unpopular in rural areas of Kentucky and West Virginia. Saunders told Lerer, "In those areas it has become culturally unacceptable for a white male to admit he’s a Democrat.”

Clinton didn't do much to help herself in Central Appalachia when during a March CNN interview, she said in response to how her policies would benefit poor white people in Southern states, "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business." While that remark was taken out of context—she followed it by saying '"And we’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people"—Republicans jumped on the first part of the statement.

On Monday Clinton met laid-off West Virginia coal miner, Bo Copley, one of many who was offended by the statement, David Gutman reports for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Copley, who handed Clinton a picture of his three children during a roundtable discussion in Williamson that was met by protesters, and told Clinton, “The reason you hear those people out there is because, when you make comments that you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, these are the people you’re affecting. That’s my family.”

Clinton, who apologized for the comment, told Copley, "What I said was totally out of context from what I meant, because I have been talking about helping coal country for a long time. What I was saying is the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs. I can’t promise miracles. We are going to do whatever we can to help the people here in West Virginia who deserve the gratitude of our country for everything that you have done over so many decades.”

Ky. clerk not sued for withholding marriage licenses now gives them only to opposite-sex couples

One of the Kentucky county clerks who stopped issuing marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage but didn't get sued has resumed issuing licenses, but only to opposite-sex couples.

Casey County Clerk Casey Davis told Larry Rowell of the Casey County News that he issued a marriage license to an opposite sex couple on Sept. 30.

"A Separate Baptist preacher, Davis said publicly numerous times after the ruling that based on his religious convictions that marriage is between a man and a woman, it precluded him from issuing a license to a same sex couple," writes Rowell, himself a Baptist minister. "And Davis said he still will not issue a license to a same sex couple. As to why he changed his position, Davis said he wants to serve opposite-sex couples."

“There’s a lot of hard decisions that come with being that (an elected official) and one of them is I wasn’t doing other people right by not issuing them licenses and when the governor and attorney general both came out and said a blank license is fine, give them the paper, it’s all right,” Davis told Rowell.

However, a spokesman for the attorney general's office told Rowell that the licenses issued from Davis’s office have not been altered.

Davis is no relation to Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed by a federal judge for refusing in a lawsuit to issue marriage licenses. Casey Davis and the other Kentucky clerk refusing to do issue licenses, Whitley County Clerk Kay Schwarz, have not been sued.

Casey "Davis also said that since Kim Davis had been sued by opposite-sex couples seeking licenses in Rowan County, he hoped to avoid that fate by reversing his position on opposite-sex couples," Rowell reports. He said a group of county clerks are “putting together a form hoping to satisfy both sides and one that the legislature will pass a bill that accommodates for both.”

Most rural county clerks quietly issuing same-sex marriage licenses regardless of personal views

While Kim Davis, County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has grabbed national headlines and been ridiculed on Saturday Night Live for refusing to issue marriage licenses based on religious objections, most of the nation's 3,100 clerks have quietly followed the law with little fanfare, Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. (Andy Brusseau photo: Evonne Hoback, county clerk of McMinn County, Tennessee)

Evonne Hoback, clerk of Tennessee’s McMinn County, a rural county that lies between Knoxville and Chattanooga in the southeast portion of the state, told Marema, “Within 30 minutes of the Supreme Court ruling, we had a phone call from someone in the LGBT community asking what we were going to do about same-sex marriage licenses. I assured them that all systems were go as soon as another agency was ready to roll with the computer system.”

Hoback said the only holdup was that "the state needed to change labels on the standardized electronic form to accommodate same-sex couples—for example, using 'surname' instead of 'maiden name,'" Marema writes. "The state and McMinn County were ready to take applications the same day as the court ruling on June 26, Hoback said." She told Marema, “We just did it without pomp and circumstance. It’s the law, and our office takes the law very seriously . . . We are here to serve people. We are here to help people. This is a public-service office . . . My responsibilities are to keep our tax dollars safe, do a good job and stay within my budget. It’s not my job to judge the world.”

While clerks other than Davis have refused to issue marriage licenses, most have complied with the law, Marema writes. "Other clerks like Wayne Nabors in Putnam County, Tennessee, have issued same-sex licenses, even though they disagree on religious grounds with the Supreme Court ruling. He told reporters, 'I have a statutory authority and a job to do.'" (Read more)

Ky. clerk says office will issue marriage licenses, but they will be invalid without her approval

The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed earlier this month for refusing to issue marriage licenses—based on religious grounds—returned to work this week with a promise not to interfere with deputy clerks issuing marriage licenses that she suggests will be invalid because they do not include her name, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis said Monday that "the 'unauthorized' documents will say they are issued 'pursuant to a federal court order' instead of including her name and title." (Associated Press photo by Timothy Easley: Kim Davis at a press conference today)

Davis said she "altered the wording of the licenses so that they no longer bear her name or the title of 'Rowan County Clerk,' which she says wrongly suggests her approval," Cheves writes. She told reporters, "Any unauthorized licenses they issue will not have my name, my title or my authority on it. Instead, the licenses will say that they were issued pursuant to a federal court order."

While Davis said she "has 'grave doubts' about the validity of marriage licenses containing the altered wording," Kentucky family law experts "say that two qualified adults who marry in good faith typically are considered legally wed regardless of the precise wording on paperwork filed to record their marriage at the courthouse," Cheves writes.

Davis also said she holds no ill will towards her deputies, especially Brian Mason, the deputy clerk who issued marriage licenses in Davis' absence, Cheves writes. Davis told reproters, "I love my deputy clerks, and I hate that they have been caught in the middle. If any of them feels that they must issue an unauthorized license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice, and I will take no action against them." (Read more)

Editor who fears media circus in his county says remove county clerks' names from marriage licenses

Kim Davis, county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has made international news for refusing to issue marriage licenses, citing her religious belief against same-sex union. Davis—who last week was sent to jail for contempt of court but was released Tuesday on the condition that she not interfere with issuance of licenses by her deputies, who had agreed to issue them—has received support and opposition from presidential candidates; local, state and national politicians; and just about everyone with an opinion, while other county clerks who have also openly refused to issue marriage licenses have mostly gone unnoticed.

One of those clerks—who has publicly supported Davis—is Casey Davis (not related to Kim Davis), county clerk in Casey County, Kentucky. Larry Rowell, editor of Casey County News, emailed The Rural Blog a column he wrote about Casey Davis. Since the column is not available online, we have published it here in its entirety. The column is headlined, "One stroke of the pen would bring peace."

"With the jailing Thursday of Rowan County Court Clerk Kim Davis for her defiance of a judge's order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the implications of this action are far reaching, beyond even the scope of imagination.

"Here are some possibilities:

Larry Rowell

"With Kim Davis jailed, what about our Casey County Clerk, Casey Davis, who remains resolute that he will not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples? When is this storm coming to our quiet little corner of the Commonwealth?

"Will the ACLU and its legions of fairness campaign cavorters descend on our Courthouse lawn to focus the national spotlight on our clerk?

"Granted, Davis has already made the national news; it just hasn't brought the protesters on a continuing basis to Liberty.

"Davis, whether one agrees with him or not, has actually come up with a sensible solution that addresses both sides of this problem. If Gov. Steve Beshear would issue an executive order removing clerk's names from marriage licenses, then that resolves the issue of Christian clerks authorizing marriage for anyone, gay, straight or remarried.

"On the other side, gay couples would still get their blank license forms from the clerk's office, take it to whoever solemnizes the wedding, and then return it to the clerk's office to be recorded for posterity.

"It's a win win situation for everyone, including a governor who hired outside counsel to do Attorney General Jack Conway's job when he refused to appeal a judge's ruling declaring Kentucky's 2004 constitutional amendment making marriage between a man and a woman unconstitutional.

"Granted, Conway is not required to appeal every decision, even if the governor wants him to. It was solely Conway's decision.

"Here's another possible scenario –there's a Beshear on the ballot this fall. Andy Beshear is running for attorney general, and the question begs itself, will Kim Davis and Casey Davis supporters remember the governor's inaction on this matter when they step into the voting booth in November?

"It seems politically expedient if the governor wanted to help his son's chances of winning, then an executive order to remove clerks' names from marriage licenses might be the ticket to this seat in Frankfort for his son.

"Davis's supporters would be happy, and why would gay couples care? They still get their licenses. 

"On a larger scale, will this issue of non-action on the governor's part hinder Conway's chances to succeed Beshear in the governor's mansion? Possibly, as Conway's opponent, Matt Bevin, has publicly and unequivocally thrown his support behind Kim Davis. Conway need not underestimate the memory of evangelicals of voting age, especially those 50 and older.

"However, with predictions of voter turnout this fall hovering in the low teens, will it matter? That remains to be seen as does other unforeseen consequences from the June Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage."

We want to know what you're writing about the Ky. county clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses

Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis has made international news for refusing to issue marriage licenses, citing her religious belief against same-sex unions. Much has been written and said about Davis, who last week was sent to jail for contempt of court but was released today on the condition that she not interfere with issuance of licenses by her deputies, who had agreed to issue them. The Rural Blog would like to hear what rural journalists are writing about Davis and whether they support or oppose her actions. Links to stories, or copies, if your website is behind a paywall, can be sent directly to tim.mandell@uky.edu.

Stacey Menser, a reporter with The Times Leader in Princeton, in the heart of Western Kentucky, compares Davis to Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who has been outspoken about Mexicans and immigrants, and who recently had Mexican-American reporter Jorge Ramos, a U.S. citizen, removed from a press conference, after which a Trump supporter told Ramos to “Get out of my country. Here is an excerpt from Menser's column (if blocked by a paywall, click here):

Stacey Menser

We don’t need to "Free Kim Davis." She should be in jail. Kim Davis chose not to do her job. Her job as a county clerk is to issue and register legal documents for citizens of her county. And she chose not to do that. When she was sworn into office as county clerk, she took an oath to uphold the laws of the federal and state governments. She, and no one else serving in a government position, has the right to pick and choose which laws to uphold. If she can’t fulfill her duties because of her personal religious beliefs—and she says she can’t—then she should have stepped down from her position back in June when the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples be allowed to marry across the United States—Kentucky included.

She has turned the Rowan County Courthouse into a circus; and she has turned all the eyes of the world to Kentucky, where she is making our whole state look like a bunch of backwards, insensitive idiots.

As a Christian, I find her argument that she is working 'under the authority of God' to be offensive. Yes, I believe God can use the simplest of people to do amazing things. But the God I know is a God of love, not hate. I see Kim Davis as a hypocrite, picking and choosing which Biblical verses, according to her interpretation, best suit her current situation. And that situation is standing in front of cameras and courtrooms and proudly denying tax-payers the rights afforded to them by the U.S. Government.

She looks at homosexuals (when she can spot them), the same way that particular Trump supporter looked at Jorge Ramos. You look different, you sound different, you act different and you are not welcome here. You are not welcome to enjoy the rights of an American citizen. So where is the line? Who is 'in' and who is 'out' in this country? Who gets to enjoy freedoms here in the U.S.? Freedoms of religion, freedom to marry, freedom to take an active role in the democratic system? I thought it was everyone, every single person living in our country. But I am afraid that’s not the case anymore; maybe it never was. The more I look at the behaviors of the 'in' crowd, the better I feel about tendering my resignation from the group. I’m out.

Big papers look at gay-friendly university town riven by clerk's stand against same-sex marriage

Friday in Morehead (Getty Images photo by Ty Wright)

The fight over an elected county clerk's refusal to issue marriage licenses because of her religious belief against same-sex marriage has brought international attention to Morehead and Rowan County, Kentucky, populations 6,800 and 23,700, respectively. Morehead is not a typical Appalachian-foothills county seat; it is the home of Morehead State University, enrollment 11,000, and has a vibrant gay community, and that has made for some lively interactions, including some vigorous protests -- but no physical altercations.

Still, Richard Fausset of The New York Times reports, "People here are confronting a question similar to one being faced elsewhere around the country: Is there a road back to the old politesse and grace that have helped this area manage its town-gown tensions for decades? Or does the bitter clash of worldviews reflect an unraveling of whatever it was that once knit disparate people together?"

Fausset and Kentucky freelancer Jim Higdon, writing for The Washington Post, note that Morehead is one of only eight Kentucky towns with "fairness ordinances" banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It was adopted without public opposition, Fausset quotes the American Civil Liberties Union as saying.

"For years, gay members of the university community and Apostolic Christians have tip-toed around each other," Higdon reports. "But the Supreme Court’s decision in June in favor of same-sex marriage made a collision perhaps inevitable, as the only thing standing in the way of gays who wanted to marry was the signature of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, a member of the Apostolic Church."

The gay community in Morehead is probably the reason that among the three Kentucky clerks who have stopped issuing marriage licenses, Davis is the only one to have been sued (and sent to jail for defying a federal judge's order). "There is no LGBT community to speak of in those other rural areas," Higdon notes. For coverage from The Morehead News, a thrice-weekly, click here.

Ky. clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses jailed; same-sex couple gets license Friday morning

UPDATED, Sept. 4: "James Yates and William Smith Jr. paid $35.50 and filled out some paperwork early Friday to become the first couple to get a marriage license in Rowan County since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage June 26, prompting a license ban by County Clerk Kim Davis," John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Herald-Leader photo by Pablo Alcala: Rowan County deputy clerk Brian Mason shook hands with William Smith Jr., center, and James Yates on Friday morning after granting them a marriage license)

A federal judge today ordered an elected Kentucky county clerk jailed for contempt of court after she refused on religious grounds to obey his order to resume issuing marriage licenses. U.S. District Judge David Bunning said he chose not to fine Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis because her supporters were planning to raise money to pay the fine. "Plaintiffs in the case had asked Bunning to fine Davis, but they specifically requested that he not jail her," notes John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/09/03/4018514_federal-judge-jails-rowan-county.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Bunning ordered Davis's six deputies to issue licenses, and five of them said they would comply. "The one holdout was Ms. Davis’s son, Nathan," Alan Blinder reports for The New York Times. "Another hearing was scheduled for later Thursday, and Judge Bunning was expected to consider a request that Ms. Davis be released if she agreed to not interfere with marriage licenses for same-sex couples."

Bunning gave Davis "the chance to stay out of jail if she 'purged her contempt' by allowing one of her deputies to sign marriage licenses in her place," James Higdon and Sandhya Somashekhar report for The Washington Post. "But through an attorney, Davis told the judge that 'She does not grant her authority nor would allow any employee to issue those licenses.' Davis’s decision means the 49-year-old elected public servant will be kept in custody indefinitely as the legal wrangling over her case continues. It also suggests she is willing to martyr herself for her cause, which is the right of public officials to be guided by their personal religious beliefs."

Two other Kentucky clerks, in Casey and Whitley counties, have refused to issue marriage licenses because of their objections to same-sex marriage, but they have not been sued. Neither have any of those in Alabama taking the same stand. The group Freedom to Marry says its surveys of clerks have found 13 in Alabama refusing to issue licenses, Greg Sargent reports for the Post.

Clerk who continues to deny marriage licenses is ordered to appear in court with deputies Thursday

A federal judge has ordered the Kentucky county clerk who continues to refuse marriage licenses to anyone, citing her religious objections to same-sex marriage, to appear in court with her deputies Thursday to explain why she shouldn't be held in contempt of court, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Cheves photo: A crowd gathered at the clerk's office Tuesday)

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/09/01/4014743/rowan-county-clerk-continues-to.html#emlnl=Breaking_news#storylink=cpy

This morning Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis "told two couples who asked for marriage licenses that she would not issue them, despite a federal court injunction ordering her to do so," Cheves writes. "In a brief but tense encounter between Davis and a couple dozen marriage-equality demonstrators who crowded into her office, the clerk repeatedly said she was not issuing licenses." When asked "Under whose authority?" she replied, "God's authority. I'm willing to face my consequences, and you all will face your consequences when it comes time for judgment. Plain and simple." For video of the confrontation, from Lexington's WKYT-TV, click here.

Cheves reports, "Outside the Rowan County courthouse, more than 100 protesters—some supporting Davis, others opposing he  shouted slogans at one another from across the entryway. Sheriff's deputies stood and watched, but there were no arrests." District Judge David Bunning "ordered her to resume on Aug. 12, an order she unsuccessfully appealed to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and, over the weekend, to the Supreme Court," which denied her appeal. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union said they are not seeking to have Davis jailed, but fined so heavily that she will be forced to relent or resign. (Read more)

Rowan County is just outside the Eastern
Kentucky Coal Field. (Wikipedia map)

In Kentucky, an elected official can only be removed by impeachment or conviction for official misconduct, which is currently being pursued by the county attorney through the office of Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee for governor in the Nov. 3 election. Religious conservatives have criticized Conway for not appealing the initial ruling against the state's ban on same-sex marriage; that was one of the rulings upheld by the Supreme Court in June. For coverage from the local weekly, go to www.themoreheadnews.com.

Ky. clerk ordered to issue marriage licenses turned away a same-sex couple on Thursday morning

UPDATE, Aug. 26: The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the clerk's request for a stay of the injunction while she appeals it. A three-judge panel of the court found "little or no likelihood that the clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal," because "It cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County clerk's office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court." For a Lexington Herald-Leader story, click here.


UPDATE, Aug. 17: The judge refused to grant the stay the clerk requested, but issued a temporary stay until she can appeal his refusal. UPDATE, Aug. 13: Despite a federal injunction, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has already turned away at least one same-sex couple trying to obtain a marriage license, Mike Wynn reports for The Courier-Journal. "David Moore, who is trying to marry his partner of 17 years, David Ermold, visited the clerk's office early Thursday, but a deputy clerk told him that the office is still not issuing the forms."

A federal judge in Kentucky has ordered marriage licenses to be issued by a county clerk who stopped issuing them because of her religious objections to the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all states.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, left, appealed, and her lawyer said he would ask U.S. District Judge David Bunning to stay his order until the appeal could be heard. Davis had already filed suit against Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, who said after the ruling that clerks were duty-bound to issue marriage licenses despite their religious beliefs. At least three other clerks, in Casey, Clinton and Whitley counties, all in Appalachia, have said they won't issue marriage licenses, but haven't been sued.

Bunning, a son of former Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said in granting a preliminary injunction against Davis that the state "is not asking her to condone same-sex unions on moral or religious grounds," or restraining her religious activities. "She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do," Bunning wrote in his 28-page order. He said her objections are sincere, but "Her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk."

Bunning ruled in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union for two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples, alleging Davis violated their constitutional rights. "The couples argue that they live, work and pay taxes in Rowan County and shouldn’t have to drive elsewhere to obtain the paperwork," Mike Wynn reportsfor The Courier-Journal. Bunning noted that seven county seats are less than an hour's drive from Morehead, the seat of Rowan, "but there are individuals in this rural region of the state who simply do not have the physical, financial or practical means to travel." (C-J photo by Wynn)

Noting that "57 of the state’s 120 elected county clerks have asked Governor Beshear to call a special session of the state legislature to address religious concerns related to same-sex marriage licenses," Bunning asked, "What would stop the other 56 clerks from following Davis’ approach?" if he ruled in her favor. "What might be viewed as an inconvenience for residents of one or two counties quickly becomes a substantial interference when applicable to approximately half of the state."

Tupelo newspaper firm refuses same-sex marriage notices, bans employees from talking about policy

Clay Foster, publisher and CEO of Journal, Inc.—which owns the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Mississippi Business Journal, eight weekly publications in Northeast Mississippi and five weeklies in the suburban Memphis area—told employees that if they have a problem with the company's refusal to accept same-sex wedding announcements, they can work somewhere else, Robbie Ward reports for the Huffington Post. Employees were also told to keep their opinions to themselves and refrain from speaking about the Supreme Court decision on social media.

Foster held a meeting with the company's top leaders two days before his column preaching the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman appeared in the Daily Journal on July 5, Ward writes. He informed employees of the marriage announcement policy and "said any employee could leave who didn't like his column or the company's policies related to stifling speech at the news organization and discriminating against same-sex couples."

Foster said in an email to employees: "We'll be discussing it more in the coming days, but what we don't need is one of our papers taking an editorial position on the issue independent of any company position on the matter. I doubt that any would, but it's safer not to assume."

The Journal's 30,000-plus circulation makes it the largest newspaper in the rural U.S.  Journal, Inc. was founded by George McLean, a leader in regional economic development theory and practice. He founded the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi to "raise the quality of life for all Mississippians." 

Mo. county board votes to lower flags to protest same-sex marriage decision; likely will recant

Officials in a rural Missouri county who voted 3-0 on Monday to lower flags to half-mast for a year to mourn the Supreme Court decision to allow same-sex marriages said on Tuesday they "would likely meet this week to rescind the vote out of respect for veterans and those serving in the military," Doug Moore reports for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dent County (Wikipedia map) Commissioner Gary Larson said, “It ain’t what our Bible tells us. It’s against God’s plan."

Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said community members agreed with the commissioners' stance on same-sex marriage but felt lowering the flag was the wrong way to protest the decision, Moore writes. Skiles said "members of the military and veterans told him that lowering the flag should be reserved as a way to pay respects to fallen soldiers and dignitaries who die."

"Skiles, a cattle farmer, said he will not propose any other action to replace the flag lowering," Moore writes. He told Moore, "I think we made our point that we are strongly disappointed. We had to be very, very strongly disappointed to even do this." He said the decision by the Supreme Court hurt him "deep down inside, like the death of a near and dear loved one." (Read more)

Rural Ky. clerk says online system would solve objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses

Casey County, Kentucky

A county clerk in Southern Kentucky who has refused to issue any marriage licenses, citing his objections to the Supreme Court ruling supporting same-sex marriages, said there is a simple solution to the problem—create an online system that issues marriage licenses, Jack Brammer reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Casey County Clerk Casey Davis said an online system would enable same-sex couples to get marriage licenses without forcing county clerks to go against their religious beliefs. The county clerk in Rowan County, in northeastern Kentucky, has also refused to issue licenses. (An earlier version of this item incorrectly said they had limited their refusal to same-sex couples.)

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said he would meet with Davis but stated, "my position is clear because I took the same oath they did, and that oath is to uphold that constitutional ruling, regardless as to what you feel about it. But I'll talk to them. I certainly encourage them to go ahead and perform their duties and move along." Beshear also rejected Davis's call for a special session of the legislature to enact online marriage licensing. Earlier, about 1,000 supporters rallied in support of Davis, Larry Rowell and Nicole Burton report for the Casey County News.

Officials in Decatur County, Tennessee, say three employees in the clerk's office "have resigned from their positions because of their opposition" to the decision and their religious beliefs, Tyler Whetstone reports for The Jackson Sun.

A same-sex couple that was turned away while applying for a marriage license last week in Hood County, Texas, is suing the county clerk, who cited religious beliefs in refusing to issue the license, reports KTVT in Dallas. The clerk did say that someone else in her office would accommodate the couple.

South reluctantly falling in line with ruling on same-sex marriage; some county clerks hold out

Southern states that had delayed issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples are now reluctantly falling in line with the Supreme Court ruling, though some county clerks are still refusing to comply, Erik Eckholm and Manny Fernandez report for The New York Times. (NYT photo by Edmund Fountain: Louisiana residents Michael Robinson and Earl Benjamin display their marriage certificate)

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is running for president, said over the weekend that his state would comply when instructed to by a federal appellate court, Eckholm and Fernandez write. Louisiana is the only state not in compliance with the ruling.

Despite Jindal's defiance, many of the state's parishes began issuing marriage licenses on Monday to same-sex couples, "according to Forum for Equality, a marriage-rights group that had sent a letter to parish clerks on Sunday warning that they could be liable for violating couples’ civil rights if they refused to provide licenses," the Times reports.

"Marriages in Mississippi, which had been temporarily halted on Friday by an order from Attorney General Jim Hood, resumed in some cities on Monday after Hood clarified his statement and gave county clerks the right to make their own decisions," the reporters write. Hood said, “If a clerk has issued or decides to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, there will be no adverse action taken by the attorney general. Hood, who is seeking re-election this year for a fourth term, said “a clerk who refuses to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple could be sued by the denied couple and may face liability.”

Campaign for Southern Equality, a gay-rights group, said that by late Monday afternoon, "at least 45 counties in Mississippi were providing marriage licenses to same sex-couples," the Times reports. "In Alabama, despite the clear hostility toward the Supreme Court ruling expressed by some top officials and previous rulings by the State Supreme Court, marriage licenses were being issued in most of the major population centers, although a few county probate judges stopped issuing any kind of marriage licenses, saying they did not want to violate their religious beliefs."

"The Association of County Commissions of Alabama, which advises the county governments, issued a statement on Monday in which it recommended that 'probate judges in Alabama follow the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court beginning at 10 a.m. today,'" Eckholm and Fernandez report.

Some county clerks, mostly citing religious beliefs, have refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Seven counties in Tennessee have not yet begun issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Stacey Barchenger reports for The Tennessean. A few county clerks in Kentucky have said they won't issue licenses, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. For a story on one, from Larry Rowell of the Casey County News, click here.

The county clerk in Cleburne County, Arkansas, resigned rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses, reports The Associated Press. Clerks in other states also have refused to grant same-sex marriage licenses, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said county clerks can refuse to license gay couples on religious grounds, Daniel Wallis reports for Reuters.