USA TODAY International Edition
Kim Davis is no Rosa Parks, critics say
Foes decry her fight for ‘ intolerance’
Rowan County, Ky., clerk Kim Davis may have a dream about honoring her religion by refusing marriage licenses to same- sex couples, but she is no Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks, critics say.
Activists and members of the A public are abuzz about recent comparisons of Davis to King, Parks and other icons of the civil rights movement. Davis’ sup- porters say her act of defiance and willingness to go to jail compare to Parks, who refused to give up her seat at the front of a public bus in Alabama in 1955.
“Kim Davis is our Rosa Parks,” wrote syndicated Christian columnist Bryan Fischer on the website of the conservative American Family Association.
The response from civil rights leaders has been swift.
They say Davis is more comparable to segregationists such as George Wallace, the former Alabama . governor who used religion as a reason to practice discrimination.
“These are people who would have opposed in their day the Rosa Parks movement in the same way that they opposed the marriage equality movement,” said Van Jones, co- founder of the Rebuild the Dream civil rights organization and former adviser to President Obama. “It’s an attempt to take an ugly stand on behalf of intolerance and to confuse people into thinking it is similar to a beautiful stand on behalf of inclusion.”
Rashad Robinson, executive director of the Color of Change online civil rights organization, said he believes the comparisons of Davis to civil rights figures are a political strategy on the part of Republicans who may see themselves as losing ground.
“If this is the strategy that the Republican Party has to build a more diverse base, to miscast and defame Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks for their political gain, then it’s both sick and sad,” Robinson said.