Jailed marriage clerk gives powerful testimony
Tells Megyn Kelly: 'I have been redeemed ... that's available to anybody that wants that'
Megyn Kelly and Kim Davis
Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who spent nearly a week in jail for defying a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, shared her Christian faith in a powerfully moving interview with Fox News host Megyn Kelly Wednesday night.
Responding to allegations from many on the left that she is motivated by bigotry and hatred toward homosexuals, Davis said, to the contrary, her actions have nothing to do with hate, but rather, stem entirely from her decision to give her life to Jesus Christ.
To violate the Bible’s millennia-old definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, she said, would be literally to deny her faith.
She revealed to Kelly that, anticipating the Supreme Court’s possible ruling on same-sex marriage, she had spent the entire year, since January, entreating her state’s legislators to fashion an accommodation for her and others but was ignored.
“I wrote every legislator and senator that we have in our state,” she said, “begging them, beseeching them, to get legislation on the floor to protect clerks like myself and many others who have religious objections, moral conflicts with this issue. I got one response.”
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Video:
Did she ever think she would end up
jailed by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, who in previous rulings
had sided with late-term abortion and homosexual clubs for kids?
"In America in 2015? No," she said. "Have we come
to a place that we can't accommodate everybody? We cannot agree to
disagree and still have respect for each other?She continued: "It's never been a gay or lesbian issue for me. It's been about the word of God, (who) defined marriage from the beginning of time."
"Outlasting the Gay Revolution" spells out eight principles whereby Americans adhering to traditional, biblical moral values can counter ever-growing attacks on their freedoms of religion, speech and conscience.
Davis said the confrontation – which resulted when homosexual couples, who could have obtained a marriage license from other nearby locations, insisted she grant them one – was a setup.
"There was a media swarm around them. That's what it was all about," she said.
Knowing jail might be the consequence, why did Davis decide not to comply with the judge's order?
"The Christian faith, God's Word, states that a marriage is between one man and one woman. That's what rules my faith," she told Kelly.
"I've not judged anybody. I have given my life to Christ. I have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. That's available to anybody that wants that," she said.
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"You have millions of Christians
who object to this whole same-sex marriage ... issue. Are their
rights worth nothing?" she asked.
When Kelly mentioned President Obama's comments supporting
religious freedom, Davis responded: "In 2015, when a county
clerk can go to jail because she is upholding her religious beliefs,
I'll have to question his statement."In the big picture, she said, it didn't matter that the judge sent her behind bars for refusing to violate her faith.
"When I gave my life to the Lord, I vowed to serve him with my whole heart, mind and soul, every bit of strength I had.
"It's a heaven or hell issue for me," she said.
She also said she doesn't watch the news reports of her critics, including some who mock her looks and call her a "monster."
"I'm going to keep it that way," she added.
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"What people say about me does not
define who I am, doesn't make me the person I am," she said.
WND reported when three
judges on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals refused Davis'
request for an injunction against the Kentucky governor in her effort
to obtain additional accommodations of her Christian-based objections
to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.But judges John Rogers, Bernice Donald and Damon Keith left alive her legal action, which will be assigned to a panel.
Although Davis is now removing her name from marriage licenses issued by her deputies, the judge and the governor both have declared the licenses to be fully valid.
That was not good enough for the ACLU, though, which is now demanding that Davis go back before the judge and possibly back to jail.
Davis is represented by the nonprofit Liberty Counsel.
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