Kim Davis nominated for TIME Person of the Year
Anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has been nominated for TIME’s Person of the Year award.
Davis, the clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, was briefly jailed earlier this year after she defied court orders to stop blocking same-sex marriage.
She has since become the darling of the far-right ‘religious freedom’ movement, with Presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee backing her cause.
The clerk is on the shortlist for TIME’s Person of the Year award – which recognises the person who “for better or for worse…has done the most to influence the events of the year”.
The Christian law firm representing Davis have asked supporters to vote for her, asking: “Who more than Kim Davis has influenced the news in the past year? Kim Davis inspired a nation and the world to fight for religious liberty when she chose a prison cell rather than sacrificing her conscience.”
In case she wins, we’ve mocked up a cover already:
The iconic award is not always handed to positive figures – with previous winners including Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Putin and (we swear we’re not making this up) ‘You’.
TIME’s bio for Davis notes: “The Kentucky county clerk got national attention when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and was jailed for five days after defying a federal court order.”
Davis probably isn’t the weirdest entity to make the shortlist, with thoroughbred racehorse American Pharoah somehow nominated for ‘Person’ of the Year.
A number of LGBT people and allies are on the shortlist, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner. Democratic Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are also up for the award, alongside Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
However, a number of anti-LGBT Republican Presidential candidates have also made the shortlist – including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.
Former winner Russian President Vladimir Putin is also nominated again.
