Culture wars, a split America and an Oregon judge under investigation

Americans split on support for religious exemption laws

Polls show that more than half of Americans support same-sex marriage.

But a national survey released in July by The Associated Press found that Americans were split on whether state and local officials who have religious objections should be required to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Forty-nine percent of respondents said officials should not be required to issue the licenses; 47 percent said they should.

An end to the truce in “culture wars”?

Kim Davis did more than register a protest when she went to jail last week after defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Davis, the clerk in Rowan County, Ky., also helped unravel an uneasy détente in the nation’s culture wars that had prevailed since the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage in June.

Davis, 49 and a Democrat, has emerged as a heroine to religious conservatives. She said she attends her Apostolic Christian church “whenever the doors are open” and cited “God’s authority” in turning away gay couples who sought to marry.

Her lawyer, Mathew Staver, called her “the poster child for why you need religious liberty exemption laws.” He criticized the judge who sent her to jail, U.S. District Court judge David L. Bunning, a former federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush.

Around the country, supporters reached for Biblical comparisons – most frequently citing Silas and Daniel, who were imprisoned for their faith and rescued by God.

That’s precisely the narrative gay rights advocates had hoped to avoid. But as Davis’ mug shot rocketed around the Internet, it became clear that the gay rights movement must battle the idea that Christianity is under siege, said Kenneth Upton, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, a law firm specializing in LGBT issues.

“This is what the other side wants,” Upton said, pointing to the image of Davis in handcuffs. “This is a Biblical story, to go to jail for your faith. We don’t want to make her a martyr to the people who are like her, who want to paint themselves as victims.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing couples Davis turned away, asked that she be fined rather than imprisoned, in part to avoid “a false persecution story,” said Dan Canon, one of the attorneys. But Bunning ordered her to jail anyway, reasoning that she would be unmoved by monetary penalties.

Oregon judge refusing to perform same-sex marriages being investigated

In Oregon, Marion County Judge Vance Day is being investigated by a judicial fitness commission in part over his refusal to perform same-sex marriages on religious grounds, a spokesman for the judge said.

When a federal court ruling in May 2014 made same-sex marriage legal in Oregon, Day instructed his staff to refer same-sex couples looking to marry to other judges, spokesman Patrick Korten said Friday.

Last fall, Day decided to stop performing weddings altogether, aside from one in March that had long been scheduled, because of his religious beliefs, Korten said.

The issue of same-sex weddings is “the weightiest” of several allegations against Day that are being investigated by the Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability, Korten said.

He declined to detail any of the allegations, saying he didn’t want to defy the commission, which considers complaints confidential until it is ready to make them public.

No one has asserted that private clergy should be required to perform same-sex marriages.