8 Outrageous Things Kim Davis's Lawyer Said

Mathew Staver has not been shy in stridently defending Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis in her refusal to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But Tuesday's "freedom rally" for the antigay clerk is hardly Staver's first opportunity to offend LGBT people.

Here now are the eight most egregious and downright outrageous things he's said in the Davis case and other high-profile clashes over equality:

8. Staver claimed that it was "impossible" for Davis to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, as that would be a "searing act of validation that would forever echo in her conscience." His motion last Wednesday specifically stated "Davis is unable to comply ... because (the injunction ordered by U.S. Judge David Bunning) irreparably and irreversibly violates her conscience."

Uh, not exactly. "It's not physically impossible for her to issue the licenses," Bunning replied in court. "She's choosing not to."

7. After his legal partner Harry Mihet (above) compared Davis's jailing to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's incarceration in a Birmingham jail and to the massive persecution Christians faced in Romania, and called her "the bravest woman in America," Staver made his own dramatic statement upon Davis's release Tuesday, writing that she "can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell, where she was incarcerated like a common criminal because of her conscience and religious convictions." What, no violins?

6. As for the marriage licenses issued since her incarceration, they are "not worth the paper they are printed on," Staver said, according to the New York Daily News.

5. "Nothing has been resolved," Staver said today, vowing Davis would return to work this week but not violate her conscience.

4. Before Davis was sent to jail last Thursday, Staver argued she was no different from a Jew in Nazi Germany. "Does that mean that if you're Christian, don't apply here? ... What happened in Nazi Germany, what happened there first, they removed the Jews from government public employment, then they stopped patronizing them in their private businesses, then they continued to stigmatize them, then they were the 'problems,' then they killed them."

3. Last month Staver argued that allowing gay Boy Scout leaders was "insane": "Now [the organization will] allow homosexual young boys in the Scouts and allow homosexual leaders in the Scouts, and what are you going to have?" Staver rhetorically asked during an August episode of his group's Faith and Freedom radio program, as reported by Right Wing Watch. "You are going to have all kinds of sexual molestation. This is a playground for pedophiles to go and have all these boys as objects of their lust. This is insane and we need to literally abandon the Scouts because the Scouts, unfortunately, have abandoned us."

"This issue of homosexuality is becoming insane," he continued, "and it is the culture battle of our time. Whether it is this Boy Scouts' abdication of its role and changing of its policies or same-sex marriage, this is a time that our Judeo-Christian values are attacked, being challenged, and this is a time for you to stand up and be true to the Scriptures and be true to our Lord."

2. Marriage equality means kindergartners will be encouraged to experiment with same-sex relationships, according to Staver. Right Wing Watch reported he argued earlier this summer that we will now witness "the marching of the kids through the public schools and the indoctrination. This is the, this is going to be an assault on them of unprecedented proportions as well." The Department of Education, he predicted, will soon be ordering schools to tell kindergartners, "'Hey, you need to experiment as a kindergarten with whether you're male or female. You need to, like, have some experiments and go out and have same-sex relationships."

1. We could have chosen that time Staver compared advocating for LGBT rights to "the bidding of the devil," or called us "homofacists" who are such a threat to Christians as to be comparable to "dealing with terrorists." But instead, we feel the number one most outrageous thing Staver has said was his answer to the question of whether she will issue licenses when she returns to work later this week. Staver would say only: "You'll find out in the near future."

We'll keep you updated.