Kim Davis, the former county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses in Kentucky to same-sex couples, must pay a total of $260,104 in fees and expenses to attorneys who represented one couple, according to a federal judge’s ruling.

That is in addition to $100,000 in damages a jury said the former Rowan county clerk should pay the couple who sued.

Davis drew international attention when she was briefly jailed in 2015 over her refusal despite the US supreme court’s legalization of same-sex marriage. She based her refusal on her belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

  • toasteecup@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Good. Your religion does not control how a government functions. You want to live in a theocracy? Go live in Vatican City or one of the more authoritarian Islamic countries. If you live in the US the policy is what the government, not your God, make it.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Unfortunately if this goes to supreme court, she’ll get away Scott free. USA is becoming a theocracy, celebrating Christian doctrine as if it was Sharia law in a muslim country.

          • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            10 months ago

            I hope so too, and their inability to try anything new is what gives me hope that it is indeed an extinction burst.

            Because extinction bursts are generally characterized by a “this is what worked before, we just have to do what worked before harder!” attitude, which generally seems to be the attitude the Christofascists have.

            They’re not selling any new ideas or changing tactics from what they have used in the past, it definitely seems like “just more of the same, but harder” because they don’t actually have any ideas. Which tracks as an extinction burst, imho.

            Which like, who expects a death cult to have any actual ideas?

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              just more of the same, but harder

              I agree, but I’m disappointed that so many follow that line, instead of most of them thinking this has gone too far. Where is the point where people begin to turn back to normalcy again? I sure hope the extinction burst doesn’t include a full fledged fascist christian dictatorship, that may take decades to turn back from.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Sadly, the extinction burst is us getting crazy before we kill ourselves and the EARTH (minus humans) returns to a more stable environment.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        Hey bucko, here in JesusLand, ya’ll best stay on the right side of God and his Holy Ya’ll Qaeda militias, otherwise the Gays might cause another Hurricane!

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yes I understand there’s that issue with gays in USA. I’m lucky to live in Denmark, one of the least religious countries in the world, and for some weird reason, also one of the most blessed by God. For some reason God likes our Gay way better than the American. Go figure? 🤪
          Or maybe we are just less cursed, because God gave up on us? 😱

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I do think there’s a chance it won’t. There’s a strong understanding of the fact that religion can prohibit you from certain jobs due to their requirements and it would be a catastrophic issue to brush past. It could wind up with the military feeling forced to take a bunch of pacifists and respecting their refusal to aid war efforts.

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          10 months ago

          Yes, the defense (and many others) industry relies heavily on science. Scientists and engineers are overwhelmingly secular. This country would fall apart almost immediately

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            As an engineer you’re not right about us. Yes many of us are secular, but a ton of us are religious, especially defense engineers.

            What I was saying is that religions exempt from the draft don’t get to enlist, if it were ruled in Davis’s favor they’d be allowed to, and some people are little shits who absolutely would enlist to sit around as pacifists. Just in general it opens up a lot of room for bad faith behavior on all sides

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      A friend of mine pointed out she could have probably just claimed to have to go to the bathroom each time a gay couple arrived in that super conservative rural area and let someone else deal with it. Keeping her cough…morals…cough intact with no one being the wiser.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        All she had to do was let someone else in her office issue the certificates. But like all religious bigots, she didn’t understand that

        1. The first amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom protects citizens from the government. If you are a government employee, you are what the first amendment protects citizens from.

        2. She was wrongfully enforcing her own religious beliefs on her assistants. Kentucky (at the time) required county clerks to sign all marriage certificates, or the clerk’s assistants could sign their name instead. Davis could literally have refused to sign every “gay” marriage cert that came in to the Rowan county office, but as long as someone in the office signed it there wouldn’t have been a problem. However, she forbade any of her assistants from signing the certs because she considered the mere act of stamping her name on one to be exactly the same as her personally endorsing “gay” marriage. So even if her assistants had no religious objections to “gay” marriage they were prevented from doing their jobs because of her religious beliefs.

        So bigot gets what bigot deserves. The only tragedy to this story is that Matt Staver gets to fuck off with no consequences.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Never thought I’d hear that asshole’s name again. But I’m glad this is the way I heard it. Bigots getting what they deserve always puts a smile on my face.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    10 months ago

    But why? All she did was deny a sanctioned government service to an entire class of people. /s

    Unfortunately I’m sure she’ll turn this into another fundraiser paid for by her fellow Christian fundamentalists.

    • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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      10 months ago

      Unfortunately I’m sure she’ll turn this into another fundraiser paid for by her fellow Christian fundamentalists.

      She already turned it into a lucrative career on the fascist misinformation circuit days after she first made national news, raking in probably millions of dollars since then.

      And yeah, I’m sure you’re right that this will serve as an additional income booster for her 😮‍💨

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 months ago

      I actually was doing the math on this kind of thing lately, but it was RE: Alex Jones/Sandy Hook.

      So, the average US lifespan is about 77.

      So a court case taking 10 years is about 1/10th of your entire life.

      Now, consider that the beginning of your life (say up to 13 or so) you’re not really in any mental position to be able to bring a court case. At the end of your life (similarly probably the last 15 years or so), you’re in a similar position, where your body and mind may be failing and you may not be in a position to bring a court case.

      So if we cut off the “unusable in court” years of our lives, we’re left with about 50 years of good quality “living” as an adult.

      That means a court case taking 10 years is actually closer to 1/5th of your entire life.

      How is a life where a large portion of it was fighting in court just to get a bare minimum of what is passing for justice a quality life?

      Do people not understand the passage of time and these are literally lives being wasted fighting for justice from fucking idiots?

      I understand the whole “court moves slow” but god damn there’s got to be a better fucking system than making people wait out giant chunks of their lives for a pathetic half-ass result that isn’t anywhere close to “justice.”

      It’s a fucking travesty that anyone defends it. It’s a broken ass system, stop acting like we can fix something that places such little value of the time spent on such things in a persons life.

      Seriously if I had spent that many years trying to claw back justice from a fuckwit like this or Alex Jones, I would not look back and think I had had a chance to have a “life well lived.” No, the “justice” system took that from me by taking its sweet fucking time.

      • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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        10 months ago

        I’m not sure I follow your point. Do you think people actually do nothing but sit in court for hours every day while a case goes through multiple appeals?

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Well for starters these people have had a huge bill hanging over their heads. Also the court case can determine how they must live their lives. Apart from that it puts a huge stress on people waiting in uncertainty of what will be decided, without really being able to do much about it.
          So although it may not take life quality away equally for all, there is absolutely a risk that it does to a very high degree. And as always with such things, it generally hits the little guy way harder than rich people.

          • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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            10 months ago

            In many cases, your point would be valid. In this particular case, the ACLU sued on the plaintiffs’ behalf, and would cover the legal bills if the courts hadn’t ordered Kim Davis to pay.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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          10 months ago

          “Those wronged have to wait 1/5 the average human lifespan for justice.”

          There. I can summarize it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.

          • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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            10 months ago

            That’s not true, though. The wronged parties already got what they wanted. They were issued their marriage license while she was in prison. The ACLU’s purpose in suing Davis for damages and legal fees is to make sure that the precedent is clearly established and other officials will be dissuaded from pulling similar stunts in the future. Worst case scenario at this point is that the ACLU is on the hook for the legal fees.

    • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s almost like the conservative court strategy is to appeal, delay, and hope you die before you face any consequences.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        10 months ago

        It’s almost like the “justice” system was organized like that on purpose because a lot of the people who helped write the constitution didn’t want the aristocracy to go anywhere, or to have to face consequences, so they wrote a shitty constitution that still generally protected everyone in a position of power from ever having to answer to “a fucking plebeian.”

        Gee, I wonder why the justice system is boiled down to “Whoever has the most money can just fucking wait out the other guy to win.”

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          Too much of our judicial system globally is based on Roman law. Our concept of private property is derived from their excuse for maintaining slavery.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah the People’s History is entertaining but might want to move on to real history at some point, but hey I get the urge. I enjoyed the movie Braveheart which is much more accurate.

          • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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            10 months ago

            And yours comes off as being smug about having read it, in spite of not having understood key aspects of it.

    • StorminNorman@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I mean, the legal system usually does. There’s been a bit of a shit fight as to who should pay, the state or Kim. Might boggle your mind more to know that she still had the position up until 2019…

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      that’s a feature. it lets the powerful fuck over the powerless without consequence because the powerless can’t afford to take a decade of their lives off fighting in court.

  • rivermonster@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Eff yeah! EAT S*$% you hateful monster!

    A little good news goes a long way these days, when there’s so little of it. TY OP for the post.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Talibangelicals don’t hate Islam because of some Crusader-Era kink. They just don’t like Arabs, Persians, and other shades of Brown Person. Reverend Wright ate all the same shit, despite being at least as Protestant as the last ten Presidents.

      There’s actually some speculation as to whether the modern day Joe Rogan / Andrew Tate conservatives are tacking towards Islam. Certainly, with all the free money the Saudis and Qatars are pumping into western broadcast athletics (golf, MMA, even e-Sports) I wouldn’t be surprised to see more high profile Muslims stepping into the same role that guys like Hakeem Olajuwon and Muhammad Ali once filled.

      In another generation, our Ben Shapiros and Steven Crowders could very well be replaced by Jordan B. Peterson in a skull cap.

  • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Yeah, sure, she’ll take that out of her -$26,100 net worth and get right on paying that back.

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I thought she rode the MAGA grifter wave for a while. I’m sure she pissed away all her grift money already, but maybe she actually has some assets left from the hate train.

    • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You’re not wrong, although I do wish that in situations like these, where the guilty party knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyway based on their own personal beliefs, that the debts incurred would be as persistent as their beliefs.

    • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      Apparently not, still on the fourth one to the second husband.

      Honestly this is the kicker for me

      Shortly after the same-sex marriage license controversy, Davis said she and her husband switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

      At least they recognized their true nature.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Everyone likes to point out that she was divorced a lot, but can you blame her? She probably had dudes beating down her door to go out with her.

      What guy doesn’t want to hook up with an angry clerk with a pompadour and baggy overalls. She’s got that “you’re in the wrong line” DMV hotness that everyone fantasizes about.

  • TokyoMonsterTrucker@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    Glad she’s finding out, but she can probs fundraise her way out of that in a few hours via the right-wing griftiverse. There’s no amount of money that hate-filled right wing grannies won’t give to assholes that they think will stick it to the libs.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    They’ll never see it.
    I bet they could repo her trailer and take all her shit and they still wouldn’t get more than $26,000.

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      10 months ago

      I feel like lawyers in a high profile case will make sure every single penny is squeezed out of her until she dies

      At least I hope so.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      That’s still a bit of a win then. Better to completely drain one of these monsters than a 250k slap on the wrist for wealthy scumbags like trump.

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    10 months ago

    I’m glad this is the ruling. …even if I know there will be a GoFund to pay this off, and she’ll probably be running for Congress in no time on the platform of “Elect me to legitimize our homophobia.”

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      10 months ago

      It would be a shame if GoFundMe was breached and everyone could see who donated to her. Maybe all of those people would suffer consequences for being huge assholes, too.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      See this is what I’m legitimately curious about. Was she able to turn her grandstanding into a lucrative side-gig of being a political speaker or author? It appears people in a position to make national news for the christo-fascist right have potential millions to be made by just playing their cards right. I imagine if she started a podcast around when she made national news, she could have gained a strong enough following to be well into a lucrative career doing speaking engagements, and could probably even push into a television show on a religious or political network.

    • Melllvar@startrek.website
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      10 months ago

      Generally, states where County Clerk is an elected position are states where county-level government is particularly important and powerful. For example, the Clerk might be in charge of elections or determining property values for tax assessment.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Its an administrative position in the municipal bureaucracy. Not totally outlandish to have an election to fill it. In this particular case, she’s made a small fortune in campaign donations by doing a pouty face for the national news every time she’s caught violating the oath she took to assume the job.