Kim Davis, Clerk of the Court in Rowan County, Kentucky has refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Now she’s being sued, has been arrested and is sitting in jail for refusing to do her job. Davis doesn’t just see it as her job. She holds fast to her religious beliefs that “marriage is between one man and one woman” and that same sex marriage “is not of God.”[1] For Davis, issuing a marriage license to a same sex couple is a matter of “Heaven or hell.”[2]
U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning, who wrote the ruling ordering Davis to issue the licenses, said that Davis has likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s protection against the establishment of a religion by “openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expenses of others.” Judge Bunning went on to say, “Davis remains free to practice her Apostolic Christian beliefs. She may continue to attend church twice a week, participate in Bible Study and minister to female inmates at the Rowan County Jail. She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do…However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk” and Gov. Steve Beshear of Kentucky has told defiant clerks, who are elected, to issue the licenses or resign.[3]
Issue the license or resign? Are those the only options? Perhaps there is at least one more option. One that is not so far to the left or to the right, but a happy medium. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires employers “to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of an employee or prospective employee, unless to do so would pose an undue hardship to the employer. A reasonable religious accommodation is any adjustment to the work environment that will allow the employee to practice his [or her] religion. Flexible scheduling, voluntary substitutions or swaps, job reassignments, and lateral transfers are examples of accommodating an employee’s religious beliefs.”[4]
A reasonable accommodation, perhaps removing issuance of marriage licenses from Davis’s duties and giving this duty to other deputy clerks, might be a viable solution. She gets to keep her job and NOT violate her religious beliefs. But employers aren’t required to offer reasonable accommodations. It’s the employee’s responsibility to request it. I’m not sure if this option has been discussed by Davis and her attorney. The fact that neither Davis nor her attorney requested a religious accommodation causes me to raise an eyebrow.
Perhaps Ms. Davis has as much vanity about her name appearing on marriage licenses as she has conscience against same sex marriage. After all, she’s been the clerk of the court for years. If her only concern is not violating HER religious beliefs and conscience, then all that is needed is an accommodation, just for her! But the fact that she does not even want the deputy clerks to sign the licenses sounds more like Ms. Davis wants her religious beliefs to be adopted by all. That’s not how an accommodation works. Religious accommodations are given to individual people not groups or entities. A religious accommodation is Ms. Davis’s happy medium between being in jail and being in hell.
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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/kim-davis-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/09/02/facing-possible-contempt-charges-kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-calls-for-due-process/
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/14/kentucky-office-refuses-to-issue-gay-marriage-license-despite-court-order/
[4] http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/wysk/religious_discrimination.cfm
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