Issues Management Exercise

The U.S. Supreme Court declares in June 2015 that all Americans have a constitutional right to marriage, including same-sex couples.

Kim Davis, clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, repeatedly defied a court order to issue licenses to all eligible couples, gay or straight, citing religious objections to same sex marriage.

The confrontation sets up an Issues Management challenge, pitting the constitutional right to marriage equality against the constitutional right to religious freedom.

Issues Management Exercise
Federal Judge Orders Kentucky Clerk Released From Jail
Kim Davis jailed Thursday for refusal to issue marriage licenses in gay-marriage dispute
By
Arian Campo-Flores
The Wall Street Journal
 
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that a Kentucky county clerk who had refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples be released from jail and forbade her from interfering with her deputies, who have been providing licenses since Friday.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning jailed Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk, for contempt last week after she repeatedly defied his order to issue licenses to all eligible couples, gay or straight. He then secured a commitment from five of her deputy clerks that they would grant the licenses in her absence. The deputies began issuing them on Friday.
On Tuesday, a group of plaintiffs who had sued Ms. Davis filed a report confirming that they had succeeded in obtaining licenses, prompting Judge Bunning to order Ms. Davis released.
“The court is therefore satisfied that the Rowan County Clerk’s Office is fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples, consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding” in June, declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Judge Bunning wrote.
But he issued a warning to Ms. Davis. She “shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,” Judge Bunning wrote. If she “should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this Order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.”
Attorneys at Liberty Counsel, the nonprofit law firm representing Ms. Davis, welcomed the judge’s order. “She can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell, where she was incarcerated like a common criminal because of her conscience and religious convictions,” said chairman Mathew Staver. “She is now free to return to her family, her co-workers and the office where she has faithfully served for the past 27 years.”

Issues Management Exercise

But Mr. Staver didn’t address whether Ms. Davis would comply with Judge Bunning’s order. In a hearing before the judge last week, she turned down an offer from the judge to be released from custody if she agreed to allow her deputies to issue licenses.
After one of her deputies began providing licenses to couples on Friday, substituting his name for hers, Ms. Davis’s lawyers maintained that the documents weren’t valid because they weren’t granted under her authority. “They’re not worth the paper that they are written on,” Mr. Staver said.
Randy Smith, a Rowan County pastor who has been organizing rallies in support of Ms. Davis, said he believed she would remain firm in her stance. “If I know Kim, she’ll be back in jail before long,” he said.
On Monday, Ms. Davis’s attorneys sought to secure her release by filing an emergency motion with the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It requested that Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear accommodate her religious convictions by exempting her from his order earlier this year that the state’s county clerks follow the Supreme Court’s ruling and issue marriage licenses to all couples. Mr. Beshear said in July that any clerks whose beliefs prevented them from issuing licenses should consider resigning.
Ms. Davis’s release came on the same day two Republican presidential contenders—former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — were scheduled to visit her at the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Ky.
Mr. Huckabee was planning to hold a rally Tuesday afternoon to protest her jailing. “Having Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubt of the criminalization of Christianity in our country,” he said in a news release.
Ms. Davis’s case has galvanized religious conservatives around the country who oppose the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision. A large crowd was gathered outside the jail on Tuesday afternoon.
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Issues Management Exercise
You are the director of communications for an LGBTQ advocacy group that strongly supports and fights for broad acceptance of marriage equality.
What advice would you give to your organization’s leadership on how to address the actions of this county clerk?

(Do a short SWOT analysis.)
Things to consider:
Would you suggest an aggressive response, insisting that the clerk follow the law or be thrown in jail? Would you organize demonstrations protesting her failure to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?
What would be the best approach to having your message of tolerance toward marriage equality accepted by a broad audience?
What do you want people to know about your group (your reputation) and how does this situation help or hurt your efforts to get those messages across?

Issues Management Exercise
Who would be considered stakeholders?
What research (primary/secondary) would you conduct to understand how best to talk about this situation with your various stakeholders?
Briefly describe how you would apply the four steps of strategic public relations (Research, Planning, Execution, Evaluation.)
What does success look like?