Kimberly Jean Bailey Davis (born September 17, 1965) is the county clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky. In 2015, Davis gained national media attention after defying a federal court order requiring that she issue marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, starting a same-sex marriage controversy in Kentucky. In the ruling, the US Supreme Court held that the right to marriage is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the Fourteenth Amendment.
After the Supreme Court decision, Davis began refusing to issue any licenses, either to same-sex or opposite-sex couples. Four couples represented by the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Davis (Miller v. Davis).
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky ordered Davis to issue licenses as required by law. Her lawyers filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court seeking to put the lower court’s order on hold while she pursued an appeal, but the application was denied. Davis continued to defy the court order and deny marriage licenses, saying she was acting “under God’s authority“.
The untold story of the improbable campaign that finally tipped the U.S. Supreme Court.
May 18, 1970, Jack Baker and Michael McConnell walked into a courthouse in Minneapolis, paid $10, and applied for a marriage license. The county clerk, Gerald Nelson, refused to give it to them. Obviously, he told them, marriage was for people of the opposite sex; it was silly to think otherwise.
Baker, a law student, didn’t agree. He and McConnell, a librarian, had met at a Halloween party in Oklahoma in 1966, shortly after Baker was pushed out of the Air Force for his sexuality. From the beginning, the men were committed to one another. In 1967, Baker proposed that they move in together. McConnell replied that he wanted to get married—really, legally married. The idea struck even Baker as odd at first, but he promised to find a way and decided to go to law school to figure it out.
Last week, June 26, 2015, the high court reversed itself and declared that gays could marry nationwide.
“Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his sweeping decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.
“They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
~~GALLERY~~
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The plaintiffs’ arguments in Obergefell were strikingly similar to those Baker made back in the 1970’s. And the Constitution has not changed since Baker made his challenge (save for the ratification of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, on congressional salaries).
But the high court’s view of the legitimacy and constitutionality of same-sex marriage changed radically: In the span of 43 years, the notion had gone from ridiculous to constitutionally mandated.
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On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court issued a historic, sweeping ruling in favor of the freedom to marry in Obergefell v. Hodges. The unprecedented decision, decades in the making, will soon bring the freedom to marry to same-sex couples across the country, ending marriage discrimination once and for all.
The ruling means that same-sex couples throughout the entire nation will no longer be banned from the rights and responsibilities of marriage guaranteed by the Constitution.
Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, celebrated joyously with the thousands of Americans couples who will finally be able to share in the fundamental freedom to marry the person they love. He said:
Today’s ruling is a transformative triumph decades in the making, a momentous victory for freedom, equality, inclusion, and above all, love.
For anyone who ever doubted that we could bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice, today the United States again took a giant step toward the more perfect union we the people aspire to.
Today the Liberty Bell rings alongside wedding bells across an ocean of joy.
With the ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the justices affirmed what a super-majority of Americans had come to understand: the freedom to marry is a precious, fundamental right that belongs to all, and that same-sex couples and our families share the same dreams and needs as any others.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning state bans on the freedom to marry making it possible for same-sex couples to marry across the country.
Lonely Ohio widower takes lead in landmark gay marriage case
CINCINNATI, OHIO
Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
Jim Obergefell and John Arthur spent more than two decades living quietly together. They were never gay rights activists.
“John and I always joked that we were bad gays,” Obergefell recalls, “because the vast majority of our friends are straight couples.”
But when the Supreme Court ruled on June 26, 2013, that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages, two activists were born — one of whom now stands at the threshold of legal history.
Fifteen days after the high court’s ruling — with Arthur in the final stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease — the couple flew to Maryland on a medically equipped jet to be legally married on the tarmac. Then they flew home and learned their marriage would not be recognized in Ohio.
“All I thought was, ‘This isn’t right. I’m p—ed off,’ ” Obergefell, 48, says now, sitting in the silence of his art-filled Cincinnati condominium.
So with little to gain but respect — the couple had protected their assets and finances because of Arthur’s imminent death — they filed a lawsuit seeking to have their marriage recognized. Within 72 hours, they won a temporary injunction.
Three months later, Arthur was gone at age 48.
But his determination to have Obergefell named as the surviving spouse on his death certificate remains. And on April 28, the couple will have their day in court — the Supreme Court.
The case is called Obergefell v. Hodges — Richard Hodges directs the Ohio Department of Health — but it’s a combination of six lawsuits filed by 32 couples, widowers and children in four states. Obergefell’s lawsuit drew the lowest case number, putting his name ahead of the others from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Thus has Jim Obergefell , mild-mannered real estate broker and art collector, become the poster child for the gay rights movement’s nationwide effort to legalize same-sex marriage.
~~GALLERY~~
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Since the justices agreed in January to consider the case, his life has become a whirlwind of media interviews and speaking engagements — Dallas and Washington last month, Houston this weekend, Atlanta in May, Columbus in June. Vice President Joe Biden embraced him. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told Obergefell’s story on the Senate floor this month while the Cincinnati resident got to watch from the Senate gallery.
“I look at this as a way for me to honor John and to still protect John,” Obergefell says. “It keeps him, it keeps our marriage, our relationship, alive.”
“As it appears in …. full read/full credit/more info”
Obergefell, the named plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges and longtime HRC member, married his partner John, who was suffering from ALS, on a medical jet in Maryland in 2013.
Obergefell and Arthur, both Ohio residents, filed a case in July 2013, seeking recognition of their Maryland marriage on Arthur’s death certificate.
Arthur died three months later on October 22, 2013. Since then, Obergefell’s case has made its way through the courts and will be heard by the Supreme Court on April 28.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will begin to hear oral arguments as they prepare to decide whether the U.S. Constitution allows for states to discriminate against same-sex couples by denying them the right to marry or refusing to recognize their marriages performed in jurisdictions where they are legal.
While the historic Supreme Court cases in 2013 (United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry) struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and brought marriage equality back to California, the current case before SCOTUS has the potential to allow for nationwide marriage equality. While over 80 marriage equality cases have worked their way through the judicial system across the country, now, finally, this decision by the highest court in the land could allow same-sex couples to enjoy the same marriage protections and basic rights as their different-sex counterparts.
Marriage equality will ensure that same-sex couples will be recognized on the state level for tax purposes, healthcare decision making, and inheritance determinations. On the federal level these couples will also gain access to critical lifeline benefits like Social Security and Veterans spousal benefits — programs that have remained out of reach for couples living in states that do not recognize their marriage.
oral arguments will begin in the landmark marriage equality case Obergefell v. Hodges — the Supreme Court case that could bring marriage equality to all 50 states.
Take action: say #LoveCantWait for nationwide marriage equality at hrc.org/lovecantwait
Stay posted: Stay up to date on all breaking news around marriage equality at hrc.org/SCOTUS
~Marriage Equality Makes Its Way to the Supreme Court Again~
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
The new series continues. Poking fun at controversial television personalities has always been a national past time. At this time, the seriousness of our reality may preclude the “fun” part … this are serious times we are living in.
So many of the memes coming through my timeline are great. I’m sure that when candidacies are announced, the primaries and the final 2016 election cycle is done, graphics like these will be getting better and better.
New series:
“From The Mouth Of Babes”!!
Tuesday, April 28: Obergefell v. Hodges and three other cases
The constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage and state refusals to recognize existing same-sex marriages. The cases are consolidated for two-and-a-half hours of argument.
William James “Bill” O’Reilly, Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist, and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel.
During the late 1970’s and 1980’s, he worked as a news reporter for various local television stations in the United States and eventually for CBS News and ABC News. From 1989 to 1995, he was anchor of the entertainment news program Inside Edition.
O’Reilly is widely considered a conservative commentator, though some of his positions diverge from conservative orthodoxy. O’Reilly is a registered “Independent” and characterizes himself as a “traditionalist.”
I must say I don’t hold a positive view about this man. It’s not personal … it’s mostly due to comments such as these.
I don’t trust him, I don’t believe him and I don’t hold him in any type of regard.
It Is What It Is 