Davis' attorney claims "persecution of Christians in this country," like Jews living in Nazi Germany

Whatever sincere religious beliefs Kentucky County Clerk Kim Davis may have, she is being exploited to the maximum by her legal representation by the Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel is a non-profit defender of "religious liberties."  Much of its notoriety comes from its anti-gay activities.  It has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Some are so cynical about the Liberty Counsel that they say they're making a martyr of Ms. Davis as a fund-raising ploy.   There's now no doubt that Liberty Council is pulling out all the stops to blow this up into something it's not.

For what purpose?    Sincere belief?    Money?   Political pandering?  As lawyers, they have to know that they cannot win.   On the other hand, perhaps they're fully aware and are not so much seeking to win in court as to create a martyr for political propaganda purposes.

Here's the latest, reported by Noah Michelson, Huffington Post:
Liberty Counsel's president and Davis' head legal counsel Mathew Staver claims that persecution of Christians exists in our country, and he likened it to what Jews faced in Nazi Germany.  Here's how he framed it:

"[Davis had a job and was] there to do a duty, a job and the job duty was changed. . . .  Does that mean that if you’re Christian, don’t apply here? . . .  [I]n Nazi Germany . . . first, they removed the Jews from government public employment, then they stopped patronizing them in their private businesses, then they continued to stigmatize them, then they were the ‘problems,’ then they killed them."

He doubled down on that statement in a radio show with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins:   "All of us would say we wouldn't do that . . . .  Well, we're about ready to walk into the moment.”

This is pretty scary demagoguery -- and it could be dangerous to rile up people with this false equivalence.   It also dishonors the memory of the millions of Jews who did die in Nazi concentration camps.

The Nazi laws that Jews were forced to abide by were patently discriminatory toward them.   The Supreme Court decision mandating marriage equality is the opposite -- it overturns existing  discrimination.    Davis is in jail, not for being a Christian but for using her official government position to force others to follow her interpretation of Christianity.

If there is any parallel to Nazi Germany, it is Ms. Davis and the Liberty Counsel trying to force their ideology on others, not the government that is making our civil society more inclusive.

It's time for U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to speak out and restore some legal sanity into this hysteria.   And where are the liberal churches in all this right-wing religious hoopla, anyway?    They were such an important part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Ralph