I have compassion for Kim Davis and the position she found herself in. When she took the job as County Clerk of Rowan County,Kentucky, as she understood the world, two people of the same sex didn't marry each other, any more than brother and sister would. The oath she swore to uphold the law was, as far as she knew, one she could keep. [Further on that oath below the squiggle.]
As it turns out, any laws that have prevented two people of the same sex from marrying have been unconstitutional from the time they or the 14th Amendment were passed (whichever came first), and it has taken this long and this much ruckus to make that clear and indisputable.
Now that oath and her duties are in conflict with what she understands is her duty to God. She failed to understand all the nuances of law and process -- and possibly of her avowed religion. She took a stand placing duty to God over what she understood was bad law.
That's where the fun began. Liberty Counsel, her lawyers, well funded through people she considers to be "on her side", have directed her in holding her stance. Meanwhile, her son, as one of her deputy clerks, is also between said rock and hard place -- so she has that additional pressure with which to contend. And the circumstances force her to address that issue to the exclusion of most anything else.
Kim Davis has not been served well by the people she may consider to be on her side. As part of their Seven Mountains strategy, other parts of their Dominionist movement have deprived the local schools of support for teaching critical thinking, among the other skills that could help her come to grips with the changes around her.
And the Kentucky law appears to leave her in the hot seat -- or, perhaps the attitude of privilege she has been supported in developing has eroded the support she might have expected from the County or her deputies.
She is in a lonely, exposed place, with no good options -- like, perhaps, the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike -- but this time, that dike is supposed to be breached.
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