Beshear Being Asshole on Gay Marriage, Too.

No, Dr. Jekyll, you do not get to claim credit for a decision you wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars trying to prevent. 

The letter to county clerks is in a PDF and locked against copying,  no doubt because Dr. Jekyll panders so shamelessly to the freakazoids in it. So you'll have to read it here.

Gov. Beshear’s Statement on Supreme Court Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage

FRANKFORT, Ky. (June 26, 2015) – “The fractured laws across the country concerning same-sex marriage had created an unsustainable and unbalanced legal environment, wherein citizens were treated differently depending on the state in which they resided.  That situation was unfair, no matter which side of the debate you may support.

Kentuckians, and indeed all Americans, deserved a final determination of what the law in this country would be, and that is the reason we pursued an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Today’s opinion finally provides that clarity.

All Cabinets of the executive branch have been directed to immediately alter any policies necessary to implement the decision from the Supreme Court.  

Effective today, Kentucky will recognize as valid all same-sex marriages performed in other states and in Kentucky. I have instructed the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives to provide revised marriage license forms to our county clerks for immediate use, beginning today.  We will report additional expected policy changes in the coming days.” – Governor Steve Beshear.

Linda Blackford's piece in the Herald includes this:

So far, Beshear's administration has spent $195,400 defending Kentucky's ban in court. He is represented by the Ashland law firm of VanAntwerp Attorneys LP.

Those bills could get higher. With the Supreme Court decision, Kentucky could be ordered, under the rules of civil rights law, to pay the plaintiffs' legal bills.

Last year, Heyburn awarded the plaintiffs' lawyers $70,778 in attorney fees and court costs. On his own initiative, Heyburn gave those lawyers a $10,000 bonus, saying the lawyers "undertook a difficult, unpopular case and achieved remarkable success."

That award is on hold pending the appeals.

As of this afternoon, same-sex couples had gotten marriage licenses in Louisville and Lexington with no trouble.

And yes, Jack Conway is a loser who is going to lose to Matt Bevin in November, but Conway did perform an act of bravery that exceeded even Beshear's embrace of Obamacare kynect when Conway refused to commit the Attorney General's Office to a no-win appeal of the court decision striking down Kentucky's ban on gay marriage.

It's a goddamn shame that that decision - and the video showing him choking up while announcing it - is going to sink him this fall.