Maybe She Gets a Cut

This week, in a blistering editorial, the Lexington Herald-Leader said,  "Davis can resign if she's morally unable to issue the marriage licenses while the appeal is pending. Law-abiding, taxpaying Rowan County citizens have been denied their constitutional rights for almost two months while Davis has kept her job and Liberty has ginned up its marketing machine."

What?  "Marketing machine?"  What are they talking about?  Well, standing behind Davis is a shadowy outfit called the Liberty Counsel, that pursues far-right religious causes like hers, the more quixotic the better.  It does this at a cost that is but a tiny fraction of the amounts of money it can raise panicking angry old white rural low-information voters with visions of persecution.  Every dollar they spend delaying the inevitable in Rowan County is probably raising them $40.  I do not exaggerate: in 2013 that was about Liberty's ratio of fundraising to "case costs."

Maybe Davis gets a cut when it's all over.  Speaking fees or something like that.  After all, if there's anything religious groups can do more or less at will, it's launder money.