After Obergefell came down, Kim Davis wasn’t the only clerk who objected to same-sex marriage. She was just the only one who refused either to perform her job, or quit it. In Texas, Rusk County Clerk Joyce Lewis-Kugle stepped down, as did Live Oak County Clerk Karen Irving. Cleburn County, Arkansas, lost its clerk, as did Grenada County, Mississippi; the clerks office in Decatur County, Tennessee, lost its entire staff.
As it became clear that the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, wasn’t going to back down, she was roundly mocked on political left. Religious-freedom cases will emerge in light of same-sex marriage, legal experts said, but this isn’t the winner; after all, clerks are government employees, tasked with executing laws.
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