Mathew Staver, head of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel legal group and also attorney for Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, spoke with Steve Kornacki on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday about Davis' entrenched opposition to same-sex marriage. Staver defended Davis' position–she continues to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite being legally rebuffed at every turn–saying Davis' “religious freedom” must be “accommodated.”
Kornacki was having none of it, however. He continued to stress to Staver that Davis is a public official and the gay couples she is denying are her constituents, whom she swore to serve. Staver insisted that the couple “can drive 30 minutes in any direction and get a license” and that the “problem” in Davis granting a gay couple a marriage license has to do with “having her [Davis'] name affixed to it.”
Kornacki also questioned Staver on the slippery slope that Davis' religious exceptionalism poses:
“If she says she has a moral and religious objection to same-sex marriage I think it raises the question, does she have a moral and religious objection to a divorced person getting re-married? Does she have a moral and religious objection to someone who's engaged in premarital relations getting married? Where does this end?”
To which Staver could only reply, “That's never been the issue…She has the right to have her faith accommodated.”
As for the gay couple that has been denied a license 5 times by Davis, Staver said,
“They don't have the right to have Kim Davis give them the wedding…Our client needs to be accommodated in her conviction…That's what the essence of America has been about, to accommodate and protect religious freedom.”
Watch the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0NQbPsnlvA