I just realized while going over my financial records that I’ve worked 120 hours in the last 12 days… so maybe I shouldn’t feel too guilty about letting the blog lapse a little. There really aren’t any consequences for doing so… except now and then a missed opportunity to say “I told you so”.
One of the bigger pieces of political news last week was a county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, who is refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Her office is an elected one, so she can’t simply be dismissed for failing to do her job… she has to resign or be impeached. Impeachment is very unlikely given the current state of the Kentucky state legislature.
After weeks of impasse a solution was found… a court order was given requiring her to issue the licenses, and when she breached it she was jailed for contempt of court. Reportedly this was chosen over a fine because her supporters would have paid any fine she incurred, leaving it ineffective as a punishment.
I have no doubt that would be the case, there seems to be an unlimited pool of money in the US for reactionary conservatives who commit all sorts of crimes, high or petty, everything from gunning down children in the streets to refusing to sell flowers to a wedding. There’s little doubt a fine would have been meaningless to her, unless it was the sort of grossly unreasonably fine that would bankrupt small countries.
Had I staked out a claim at the time I would have recommended a fine anyway. I’m not what you could call a “Carceral Liberal”, I don’t like prison generally. I don’t recommend it for any cases except where the criminal is a danger to the public. But it’s especially bad in this case. It fires up that wingnut welfare machine, guaranteeing that when she’s released (which has already happened) Kim Davis walks away with wealth and fame and no lasting consequences.
A far better approach, I think, would have been an escalating fine. Start it out small… a few day’s pay for her first day not working, perhaps. Then double it for the second day. Double it again for the third day. If the wingnut welfare comes, let it come! I’m sure Kentucky can find a use for vast hoards of ill-gotten treasure.
The only downside I can see is the delay. Jailing Davis, however temporarily, allowed weddings to proceed unobstructed for the last week. If she refuses again, and is jailed again, they will presumably continue again this week. My escalating fine scenario would have resulted in a delay… not much of one, geometric progression being pretty fast, but some. This might have had lasting consequences, such as happened when the when a US soldier with breast cancer died while her prospective marriage was being appealed. But in such cases I think all those fines could be used to transport people to the next county over.
Anyway, she’s out now, and apparently none the worse for wear. She now has throngs of followers. The Republican presidential candidates are falling over themselves to praise her. She has vowed to continue defying the court order, so she’ll probably go back to jail sometime this week. And nobody will be safer or better off for it, leaving only the cold comfort of the schadenfreude.
I do wish I’d staked out this position in advance. But by waiting, I did manage to avoid a couple pitfalls… there was a tweet from someone pretending to be Kim Davis, comparing her to Rosa Parks. Lots of excellent rebuttals of that, but since Davis never actually said that they were all a little misplaced.
And the slut shaming… oy, the slut shaming. Libby Anne, who I’m not sure I’ve ever disagreed with about anything, dealt with that nicely. Pretty much all I can say about it is this: Come on now, we should be better than that.
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