Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, was jailed for contempt when she refused to honor the Supreme Court’s order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Given John Locke’s beliefs regarding the necessary separation of church and state as detailed in A Letter Concerning Toleration, he would agree that Kim Davis was lawfully jailed for her actions in contempt of the Supreme Court decision. It is first necessary to realize that Locke would believe Davis acted unlawfully. He believes in the separation of church and state, i.e. that the Church has no civil authority (Locke, 33), and would find that Davis’s position within the government did not authorize her to interpret the law on behalf of her religion. Not only did Davis have no authority
