From everything I've read, it looks like Kim Davis never made any of these legal arguments in Federal court. Her whole case was based on a "religious freedom" argument, when a simple reference to the statutory requirements under Kentucky law would have sufficed.
If anything, the legal argument here would be that Kentucky doesn't really have any marriage statutes at all ... which begs the question of how she could be compelled to sign any marriage certificates.
Point taken.
However, the judge is obligated to note what law she is obligated to carry out in her official capacity - a law which his superiors (SCOTUS) vacated. He can’t hold her in contempt of a law which he cannot quote because it doesn’t exist. That she is claiming a religious exemption to a nonexistent law is irrelevant.
Her attorney, if smart, will demand the judge quote what law he demands she act on, then observe that absent an adjudicated or legislative rewrite of that law, the law does not stand and there is nothing for her to act on and nothing for him to hold her in contempt of.
Her whole case was based on a “religious freedom” argument, when a simple reference to the statutory requirements under Kentucky law would have sufficed.
Which leads me to repeat...she wanted to become a martyr...