Kim Davis To Receive Award, Be Honored At Values Voter Summit

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County Kentucky, who recently spent time in jail for refusing to follow a court order, and who continued to defy that order upon her release, will soon be granted an award, stage time, and honors for her actions. The conservative lobbying group, the Family Research Council (yes, the same group that recently parted ways with family values speaker Josh Duggar) will be treating Davis as an honored guest at the upcoming Values Voter Summit.

A brief backstory on Kim Davis, if you’ve missed it: she sued Rowan County, where she works as a court clerk, for the right not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and lost. She appealed, and asked for a stay (a period of time in which she didn’t have to obey the ruling) during her appeal. The stay was denied. She petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay, and was denied. Despite this, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to any couple, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

For contempt of court — refusing to follow a lawful order — Davis spent 6 days in jail, and upon release, was ordered to allow other clerks in her office to issue marriage licenses. She continues to defy the original order and will issue no licenses herself, and will not authorize the licenses, but is no longer preventing other clerks from issuing them.

The Courier-Journal reports that Davis would only allow the marriage licenses to be issued after alteration — rather than her signature, they bear a line that reads as follows.

“…pursuant to federal court order.”

Now the Family Research Council has announced that, at the Values Voter Summit next week, Kim Davis will be the recipient of the “Cost of Discipleship Award,” and will be honored along with her lawyer, Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel.

As for the Liberty Counsel, that organization is referring to the honor next Friday as “…[Kim Davis’] first national speaking engagement…” (emphasis added), which suggests the group might have further plans for the county clerk’s career as a political influence.

The FRC noted that last year’s recipient of the Cost of Discipleship Award was Mariam Ibraheem.

“… the Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to death for apostasy and spent months in a notoriously rank Sudanese prison with her toddler son and newborn daughter.”

The organization did not directly contrast the experiences of the two women.

Kim Davis will receive her award on Friday, September 25, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.

[Photo by Ty Wright / Getty Images]