“Is your position that one should never take a job if there is a possibility that it may require you to violate your conscience, due to a change of job description?”
No.
My position is that if the conditions for continued service in that elected public-sector position become at variance with the officeholder’s faith, that officeholder should seek a workable solution to mitigate that conflict. Did she do everything she could’ve done — without compromising her beliefs— to avoid this situation? Was she elected to cite God’s authority in her position as county clerk? Is God’s authority a component in the law she took an oath as an elected official to uphold?
What is no unreasonable only asking that the Kentucky marriage license forms be changed so her name would not appear on them. And that she would record any license without her name affixed?
And she works in the wrong county (Rowan). For as of September 3, 2015, Appalachian Kentucky counties Casey and Whitley refuse to issue licenses to same-sex couples: "Casey county has stopped issuing licenses to all couples rather than issue to same-sex couples, while Whitley refuses only same-sex couples. The clerks from both counties have demonstrated at the state capitol to demand a religious exemption from issuing licenses to same-sex couples. A third county, Knott, refuses to say whether they will issue licenses." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Kentucky
And it is likely (we pray) that Kentucky will do what NC did in which "a law allowing officials to refrain from conducting marriage-related duties has led to more than 30 magistrates refusing to perform same-sex unions, the Associated Press reported."
a law allowing officials to refrain from conducting marriage-related duties has led to more than 30 magistrates refusing to perform same-sex unions, the Associated Press reported. Utah has a similar law. - http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/05/kentucky-clerk-same-sex-marriage-license-religious-freedom/71770124/
Was she elected to cite God’s authority in her position as county clerk?
And just where did she say she was, rather than giving her personal reasons for not subscribing to a radical redefinition of marriage?
Is God’s authority a component in the law she took an oath as an elected official to uphold?
Actually by extension, yes, unless you believe those of Kentucky’s Constitution which defines marriage as as exclusive union between a man and a woman did not significantly flow from religious beliefs, as well as its revised statues that prohibit same-sex marriage. Likewise did the beliefs of the Founders overall, and thus the moral laws of the US.
Kentucky Amendment 1 which banned Ban Same-Sex Marriage passed 75% to 25% (http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/ballot.measures/), reflecting the religious beliefs of the voters overall (Kentucky is the 4th most evangelical state), and thus it would be absurd to think that belief in God’s authority was not largely behind the law Davis took an oath as an elected official to uphold, and thus it implicitly is part of it. Or do you think Kentucky’s Constitution and Amendment flowed from atheism or simply natural law?
The separation clause does not mean, and cannot mean, that there cannot be laws regarding behavior (not heart assent) that reflect beliefs of a particular religion, with secular ethos supplanting it.