Kentucky Gov. to Clerks: Marry Those Gays or Get Out

Though just months ago Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear was bending over backwards to defend his state's ban on same-sex marriage, he's now laying down the law for county clerks who refuse to comply with the Supreme Court's decision.

Several clerks have claimed that marriage equality violates their constitutionally protected right to diss other people because they think the Bible tells them so, also known below the Mason-Dixon line as "religious freedom."

One such clerk is Rowan County's Kim Davis, the subject of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples to whom she denied licenses. That's right, in order to avoid discriminating against the gays, Kim Davis stopped issuing marriage licenses to everyone.

Related | WATCH: Kentucky Gay Couple Denied Marriage License

Davis took the stand on Monday where she argued that issuing licenses under her name would be a violation of her religious freedom, even if a deputy clerk did it for her.

"If I say they are authorized, I'm saying I agree with it," the holy crusader said through her divine tears, "and I can't."

Well, Gov. Beshear has one word of advice for Davis and other clerks who feel like their faith will be compromised by basically doing their job: resign.

"When you voluntarily decide to run for office, and you win, and you raise your hand and you take the oath to uphold the Constitutions of the United States," Beshear said at a press conference a day after a federal judge heard the case against Davis, "that oath doesn't say 'I will uphold the parts of the Constitution that I agree with and won't with the parts I don't agree with.'"

Beshear added:

You can continue to have your own personal beliefs but, you're also taking an oath to fulfil the duties prescribed by law, and if you are at that point to where your personal convictions tell you that you simply cannot fulfil your duties that you were elected to do, than obviously an honourable course to take is to resign and let someone else step-in who feels that they can fulfil those duties.

However, back in March, this same Gov. Steve Beshear argued that Kentucky's then-existent ban on gay marriage wasn't discriminatory because it prohibited both gay and straight people from marrying partners of the same sex.

This doesn't represent a sudden about-face for the governor, rather, he's just a real stickler for the law, preferring to keep his views on marriage equality to himself. Where they belong. For the Rowan County clerk, resignation is not an option.

"If I resign, I solve nothing," Davis said. "It helps nobody."

Au contraire, the Unbreakable Kimmy D. If you resigned, it would at least help anyone in Rowan County who wanted to get married. Of course, this just gives those couples incentive to move down to Lamar County where they can get happily married by this hunk-and-a-half.

Les Fabian Brathwaite -- upholding the parts of the Constitution I bothered to read.

[h/t] PinkNews