Kim Davis, Marriage Licenses, etc. (split from News)

[Jazra]

From what I've read, the only way to get her out of office before the end of her term is impeachment or resignation. Even going to jail or prison for contempt (and she's been released) doesn't mean she'll lose her office. To me, the question is whether the legislature would have the votes to impeach her even if they tried.

[Cycle]

Wait a second. So she wasn't fired? She's seriously able to go right back to her job?

... I just.. wow.

Hey Ariel, good to see you around again!  :-)

Yeah, just so we're all on the same page:  basically what happened was a while back, some same sex folks wanted a marriage license from Kim Davis' county.  She, as the county clerk, refused to issue it and also ordered her deputies not to.  Then she stopped issuing marriage licenses completely.  The same sex couple and some different sex couples all sued Kim Davis, trying to get a judge to order her to issue marriage licenses.  They succeeded, and the Federal judge ordered Kim Davis to issue marriage licenses.  She appealed.  Lost.  Appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost again (they declined to take it up on review).  So, the order is valid and good.

Kim Davis then still refused to comply, and was ordered to appear before said judge.  The judge found her to be in contempt of his order, and imposed a sanction to get her to comply.  Now, a judge can impose either monetary sanctions, or jail time, or both.  He chose jail time because of all the people saying they'd just pay any monetary penalties for Kim Davis.  On the day he sent her to jail, the judge gave Kim Davis one more chance:  five of the six deputies agreed to issue licenses, so he would not send Davis to jail of she agreed not to interfere with those five deputies.  She refused, and so, off to jail she went.

To be clear, Kim Davis is not under arrest for a crime.  She isn't a criminal.  She was held in jail because she was in contempt of a court order.  It's really no different from a situation where someone violations a restraining order--i.e., ex-spouse is ordered not to go within 500 feet, he does, he can be fined or thrown in jail for violating the restraining order.

Her lawyers are spinning and spinning hard.  Most of what they say--e.g., she was arrested for her faith--is pure hogwash.  She was tossed in jail for defying a judge.  Something which we, as a society, have lived with for hundreds of years now.  You simply don't get to screw around with judges.  And the system needs to work that way or it falls apart--imagine what would happen if everyone is allowed to defy a judge's order at will. 

[gaggedLouise]

I don't recall ever hearing of a case where a judge was found guilty of criminal abuse of his/her office (different from just making a couple of gravely phoney judicial decisions - almost any judge can be found in error by an appeals court) and sent to jail, but I figure such cases must exist, even if they're very rare. If that happened, the judge would be relieved of their office very quickly, or so I hope.

(Where I come from judges are not elected by popular vote, they're appointed by the government from a shortlist drawn up by some of their peers in the office - but being a judge is still an office it is very hard to get fired from)  ;)

[Oniya]

Removing a judge from the bench (elected or not) is still somewhat different from 'firing' them.  (As the curious type, I had to go look it up, and found this.)

[Blythe]

     Huckabee speaking at a rally for Davis:
     
     Oh, if only sending him to jail would ensure people issued the licenses!  Dang it.  ;) 

My thoughts exactly.   ;D

[Jag]

So...one of my fetlife friends was at the little rally they had for her release today and wrote down her little speech,

"I just want to give god the glory. His people have rallied and you are a strong people. We serve a living god who knows exactly where each and everyone of us is at. Just keep on pressing. Don't let down. Because he is here. He is worthy, he is worthy. I love you guys. Thank you so much."

Video Link

It sounds like to me, that she is saying that God is worthy of us. I thought it was supposed to be that we are worthy of God?

My friend left the rally shaking their head. Apparently Davis' husband is a pretty awful guy too. “I’m an old redneck hillbilly, that’s all I’ve got to say. Don’t come knocking on my door.” -Source and something about his Second Amendment rights. As far as I know, no one has gone to their house ever. They pretty much stay at the courthouse. Also, I know a lot of redneck hillbillies (who call themselves that and like it), and many of them are very tolerant of other sexualities.

[gaggedLouise]

Or..she is hinting that God engineered her way out of jail, like Paul and Silas being freed by the earthquake and the angel...?  :P

[Jag]

Or..she is hinting that God engineered her way out of jail, like Paul and Silas being freed by the earthquake and the angel...?  :P

I wouldn't put it past her and her crazed fans.

[Cycle]

Well, she's in deep trouble now.  She's pissed off Survivor.

Don't mess with those 80's pop bands, man...

[Iniquitous]

So tired of this woman and her shit. Here's to hoping she effs up tomorrow when she goes back to work and ends up right back in jail. That'll put a smile on my face.

[Mithlomwen]

I still have to shake my head at Ole Mikey.  I wonder if he even realizes he's shooting himself in the foot.  How does he actually think anyone would vote him into the white house when he spouts stuff like that? 

I wish they would quit giving this woman any coverage at all.  I personally believe she's  just doing this for the publicity.  She's had her fifteen minutes of fame, time to move on to other things.

(edited to fix a typo)

[Iniquitous]

I still have to shake my head and Ole Mikey.  I wonder if he even realizes he's shooting himself in the foot.  How does he actually think anyone would vote him into the white house when he spouts stuff like that? 

I wish they would quit giving this woman any coverage at all.  I personally believe she's  just doing this for the publicity.  She's had her fifteen minutes of fame, time to move on to other things.

You'd think his support of ole Josh Duggar would have turned people off from him. Sadly, the ones who still support him are the ones who can't think for themselves. Even worse, my parents are in that group. There is a standing rule I have now that any discussion dealing with religion, the nitwit Davis, the Duggars, or these nutjob politicians is off limits. I don't want to hear it and they get pissed when I start pointing out holes in their arguments.

[Alhanna]

I read somewhere that the reason she's for adding her deputies from issuing as well is because her name is on those licenses and she believes it implies she condones same sex marriage. So the article thought it wouldn't be unreasonable to just remove her name and reprint new licenses.

Here's me: .... *facepalm*

On Facebook, there's a meme that tried to compare her to a flight attendant who is using her Muslim faith to refuse to serve alcohol. However, it's a bit different because Davis is trying to deny others to do their job where this flight attendant was just asking someone else serve.

But now the situation has gotten worse. Apparently there's a judge in Texas refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples.

My head hurts.

[kylie]

On Facebook, there's a meme that tried to compare her to a flight attendant who is using her Muslim faith to refuse to serve alcohol.

I  agree with you, it's different. Also the airline had previously said it would make a religious accommodation and find others to serve the alcohol. I don't drink alcohol (I just want more airlines to offer soft drinks more frequently), so I don't have a clear feeling of how much burden that imposes. But reportedly, then some other attendants got upset that they had to work around it and then it became an issue for the company to maintain its own terms.

But now the situation has gotten worse. Apparently there's a judge in Texas refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples.

     That has actually been happening with Davis already. She got sued for denying all marriage apps in an attempt to get around the Supreme decision, but then it just becomes a question of don't people generally have a right to marriage to begin with -- and the same Supreme decision says yes.

[LtSurge]

The only reason marriage has even been such a big topic of contention is that people care about the government recognizing marriage (as if people need a blessing from anyone but each other to be in love and enjoy each other's companionship) and the government offering tax incentives to married people.

Legal marriage also empowers Divorce Courts. Falling out of love is a high statistical probability, and legal marriage is a gamble. The only real winner is the State. Legal Divorce has time and again pitted past lovers against each other in an adversarial system to extract resources and children from each other.

I would argue in a truly egalitarian society, anyone can be married to anyone else and there would be no legal benefits to being married. In fact, "marriage licenses" wouldn't be necessary. Because, again, why do you need anyone else to tell you who to be in love with?

[Jag]

More humorous than adding to anything, but...

[consortium11]

But now the situation has gotten worse. Apparently there's a judge in Texas refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples.

If this is the case I think it is, it wasn't that he wouldn't perform marriage ceremonies but that he wouldn't grant divorces (and for the record it was in Tennessee, not Texas). His logic (and I use that term very, very loosely) was that now that the Supreme Court has defined what is a marriage it has overruled state laws on marriage and thus the states must now wait for the Supreme Court to define what isn't a marriage before it can start granting divorces. In effect he argued that issues relating to marriages and marriage law are now outside the jurisdiction of state courts.

That said, as is usually the case in such things, there's more to it then just that. The Obergefell case was simply one reason he gave for refusing the divorce and he added several more (notably that they didn't satisfy the burden for divorce required by the Tennessee statutes and that both parties had legally unclean hands) which would apply if his jurisdiction point failed (full judgement here). I suspect that this was a case where he was always going to refuse the divorce and then tacked on the gay marriage point afterwards rather than one where he would have granted the divorce but refused to because of gay marriage.

Well, she's in deep trouble now.  She's pissed off Survivor.

Don't mess with those 80's pop bands, man...

I really, really, really dislike bands/composers/similar groups who do this.

Survivor handed over Eye of the Tiger to ASCAP for licensing. Thus anyone who buys the appropriate ASCAP license is perfectly legally entitled to play the song regardless of what any member of Survivor may think (Fox News actually somewhat trolled Adam Levine on that point when he objected to them playing Maroon 5's music). The only claim Survivor may have is under the Lanham Act by arguing that by playing the song at an event for Kim Davis the general public may think that Survivor support and endorse her... but I think that's highly unlikely to succeed.

The reason bands do this is to get positive publicity for themselves and because they know the cost of fighting the law suit is almost certainly going to end up being vastly more expensive then any settlement (be it buying an ASCAP license if there wasn't one previously or any damages under the Lanham Act) and so people settle relatively early (as Newt Gingrich did when Frankie Sullivan pulled the same trick on him) because it saves money and effort. It's no different to situations where companies sue members of the public knowing that even if their case has little to no merit the sheer costs of contesting the case in court mean that the person in question is most likely to settle early and accept the blame.

Sullivan's facebook post reeks of arrogance. He doesn't get to decide who has the rights to play Eye of the Tiger any more... he traded in that right in exchange for getting more money when it became included in ASCAP. If he cared about being able to control who has rights to that song then he would have kept the licensing rights himself rather than farming them out.

[kylie]

       Okay, I probably wouldn't personally sue her over her choice of theme music...  Though I might also find it hard to object if say, Survivor wants to remove a few dollars from those pockets that seem to want to fund her so well, and put them to use elsewhere.  It wouldn't be anything worse than equally dirty politics, and where a cause is rather aggravating, that isn't such a surprise. 

       If I were the artist, I do suppose I'd get up and say, "That's not the spirit of the song as I intended it and btw that cause they played it to celebrate really sucks."  Just because hey, they took my work and used it for something repugnant and if they can tell people when they think it is applicable, why can't I just as fairly go out in public and do the same with my opinion.  I'd just happen to be the artist, ya know.  What, are they afraid artists might function somehow as competing political figures or something?  How terrible for them then.

[Oniya]

       Okay, I probably wouldn't personally sue her over her choice of theme music...  Though I might also find it hard to object if say, Survivor wants to remove a few dollars from those pockets that seem to want to fund her so well, and put them to use elsewhere.  It wouldn't be anything worse than equally dirty politics, and where a cause is rather aggravating, that isn't such a surprise. 

This actually happened back in 2008.

Artist: Gretchen Peters
Song: "Independence Day"
Controversy: Peters wrote the 1993 country hit, recorded by Martina McBride and used during Sarah Palin's introduction at a rally. Peters lashed out at the campaign, saying "The fact that the McCain/Palin campaign is using a song about an abused woman as a rallying cry for their Vice Presidential candidate, a woman who would ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest, is beyond irony. They are co-opting the song, completely overlooking the context and message, and using it to promote a candidate who would set women's rights back decades."
Result: Peters is taking the matter into her own hands: She's donating all of the election season royalties of the song to Planned Parenthood and is encouraging people to make similar donations under the name "Sarah Palin."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/stop-using-my-song-republicans-a-guide-to-disgruntled-rockers-20081010#ixzz3lFYjEybH

[Bloodied Porcelain]

I really, really, really dislike bands/composers/similar groups who do this.

Survivor handed over Eye of the Tiger to ASCAP for licensing. Thus anyone who buys the appropriate ASCAP license is perfectly legally entitled to play the song regardless of what any member of Survivor may think (Fox News actually somewhat trolled Adam Levine on that point when he objected to them playing Maroon 5's music). The only claim Survivor may have is under the Lanham Act by arguing that by playing the song at an event for Kim Davis the general public may think that Survivor support and endorse her... but I think that's highly unlikely to succeed.

The reason bands do this is to get positive publicity for themselves and because they know the cost of fighting the law suit is almost certainly going to end up being vastly more expensive then any settlement (be it buying an ASCAP license if there wasn't one previously or any damages under the Lanham Act) and so people settle relatively early (as Newt Gingrich did when Frankie Sullivan pulled the same trick on him) because it saves money and effort. It's no different to situations where companies sue members of the public knowing that even if their case has little to no merit the sheer costs of contesting the case in court mean that the person in question is most likely to settle early and accept the blame.

Sullivan's facebook post reeks of arrogance. He doesn't get to decide who has the rights to play Eye of the Tiger any more... he traded in that right in exchange for getting more money when it became included in ASCAP. If he cared about being able to control who has rights to that song then he would have kept the licensing rights himself rather than farming them out.

As far as all news stories I've seen have told, they didn't have the legal ability to use the song, and are in violation of copyright law because of that. Survivor isn't sueing at this point, but they are having their attorney draft a C&D order. They are doing this for the same reason that labels and artists can go after DJs, venues, etc that use their music without paying for the right to use it or app.

This is from an article on the issue:

Broadcasting, in the context of music licensing, means the playback of recorded or live music for groups of people beyond what might be normally expected in a social setting. Legal claims are filed frequently against bookstores, bars, and live music venues that broadcast music without first obtaining a performance license.

There is also a lengthy history of politicians having to pay out to bands for using their music without permission.

[consortium11]

       Okay, I probably wouldn't personally sue her over her choice of theme music...  Though I might also find it hard to object if say, Survivor wants to remove a few dollars from those pockets that seem to want to fund her so well, and put them to use elsewhere.  It wouldn't be anything worse than equally dirty politics, and where a cause is rather aggravating, that isn't such a surprise.

It doesn't quite work like that. ASCAP licensees are rarely bought for individual songs and instead someone pays a flat fee to get access to the entire library; it's not as if they have to pay each time the song is played and then Sullivan gets a cut.

As far as all news stories I've seen have told, they didn't have the legal ability to use the song, and are in violation of copyright law because of that. Survivor isn't sueing at this point, but they are having their attorney draft a C&D order. They are doing this for the same reason that labels and artists can go after DJs, venues, etc that use their music without paying for the right to use it or app.

This is from an article on the issue:

Assuming someone on Huckabee's staff paid for the ASCAP license (and I'd be utterly staggered if they hadn't got one) then he has every right to use any song in the library (which includes Eye of the Tiger) with only the dubious Lanham Act claim having any merit. Sullivan complaining now is a combination of grandstanding and a cynical cash grab.

There is also a lengthy history of politicians having to pay out to bands for using their music without permission.

To quote from the article which reiterates my point (emphasis mine):

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Mr. Romney, said the campaign had stopped using K’naan’s song out of respect for his political views, even though the campaign bought blanket licenses from two public-performance societies — Ascap and BMI — which pay royalties to members.

Experts on copyright law said such licenses, usually bought by restaurants and other businesses that play recorded music, do protect the campaign from many copyright complaints, but a politician can still be sued under the federal trademark law for false advertising if the use of the song implies that the musician has endorsed the candidate.

The reason the cases get settled is because the cost of fighting them vastly outweighs the settlement amount and because cases tend to drag on long after the election campaign the song was used in has ended so there's little point in continuing to contest them.

[Cycle]

ASCAP's FAQ on this issue.  Note that is specifically says that an ASCAP license will not shield a campaign from legal liability under the Right of Publicity, Lanham Act, or False Endorsement.

a combination of grandstanding and a cynical cash grab.

Describes Huckabee, and Ms. Davis, rather well.

[consortium11]

ASCAP's FAQ on this issue.  Note that is specifically says that an ASCAP license will not shield a campaign from legal liability under the Right of Publicity, Lanham Act, or False Endorsement.

Yes, but I can see no realistic case for any of those three things here if a case was to see court:

Right of Publicity: Huckabee and Davis aren't using the name, image, likeness or any other unequivocal aspects of Frankie Sullivan in particular or Survivor in general.

Lanham Act: Playing Eye of the Tiger having obtained the legal license needed in no way dilutes the trademark.

False Endorsement (which is also a Lanham Act issue): There was no suggestion that Huckabee/Davis stated that Survivor/Frankie Sullivan endorsed or supported them and I really struggle with any argument that states that merely because the song was played at a rally the general public is going to think that Sullivan or Survivor are supporters of the rally, the people in question or its cause.

We get back to the central point; if Sullivan had wanted more control over who had the rights to play his songs then he wouldn't have traded them away. If he cared so much about it then he'd have taken on the extra work (and doubtless lesser income) that came with saying yea or nay to requests himself. He didn't; he traded that responsibility and privilege away but wants to act like he didn't. In a different context we'd be calling this a SLAPP case and rubbishing it but because it's an incredibly dislikeable woman who's done incredibly dislikable things supported by an incredibly dislikeable politician we ignore the fact that this is a lawsuit with almost no grounds for success if it reached court where the main intention is to get a pay-off in settlement by being more hassle then the case is worth.

[Alhanna]

If this is the case I think it is, it wasn't that he wouldn't perform marriage ceremonies but that he wouldn't grant divorces (and for the record it was in Tennessee, not Texas). His logic (and I use that term very, very loosely) was that now that the Supreme Court has defined what is a marriage it has overruled state laws on marriage and thus the states must now wait for the Supreme Court to define what isn't a marriage before it can start granting divorces. In effect he argued that issues relating to marriages and marriage law are now outside the jurisdiction of state courts.

That said, as is usually the case in such things, there's more to it then just that. The Obergefell case was simply one reason he gave for refusing the divorce and he added several more (notably that they didn't satisfy the burden for divorce required by the Tennessee statutes and that both parties had legally unclean hands) which would apply if his jurisdiction point failed (full judgement here). I suspect that this was a case where he was always going to refuse the divorce and then tacked on the gay marriage point afterwards rather than one where he would have granted the divorce but refused to because of gay marriage.

Nope. Not that one.

A quick Google pulled this up:

Judge refuses to perform straight marriage, no outrage

[LisztesFerenc]

Nope. Not that one.

A quick Google pulled this up:

Judge refuses to perform straight marriage, no outrage

  The article seems to misses the key difference between:

"I refuse to serve your people until my people enjoy the same rights" (Won't marry heterosexual couples until homosexuals can marry)

"I refuse to acknowledge that your people have been given the rights my people have enjoyed for so long" (Won't marry same sex couples full stop)

  Which to me seems rather glaring. Also the first comment on the article points out that judges are not required to grant marriages, whereas county clerks are.