Anti-Defamation League condemns clerk’s lawyer for comparing her to ‘Jews in the gas chambers’
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The Anti-Defamation League has condemned comments by the lawyer of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis – after he compared his client’s treatment to the gassing of Jews in the Holocaust.
Davis, the clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, flouted direct orders from a number of courts to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She was remanded in custody yesterday for contempt of court.
In a radio interview earlier today, her lawyer Mat Staver, of the Liberty Counsel, likened the case to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.
He said: “Back in the 1930s, it began with the Jews, where they were evicted from public employment, then boycotted in their private employment, then stigmatised and that led to the gas chambers. This is the new persecution of Christians here in this country.”
In a statement to PinkNews, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, condemned the remarks.
He said: “It is outrageous and the worst sort of hyberbole for anyone to draw comparisons between Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ refusal to grant marriage licenses in defiance of American court rulings and the systematized persecution of European Jews during World War II.
“Mat Staver’s remarks are not only profoundly offensive; they also wrongly cast someone seeking to impose her religious views on others as a victim akin to those who were murdered because of their religion.
“No one has questioned Ms. Davis’ sincerity or her right to her views.
“She is the one who successfully sought election to a government position whose responsibility includes granting marriage licenses in accordance with American law, and her attorney’s effort to compare her to victims of the Nazis is truly abhorrent.”
The comments are no surprise from Staver. The lawyer has previously claimed children will be “forced” into same-sex relationships, compared equal marriage to Islamic State, and suggested that gay equality will cause straight men to cheat on their wives with other men.
