If the goal is the former—to ensure the issuing of licenses—there are any number of solutions. Because though Ms. Davis makes clear that she believes same-sex marriage a violation God’s law, she’s not asking the state of Kentucky to share this view or even to deny couples their licenses. What she objects to is that the marriage licenses come with her name “affixed to the certificate.” She asks the state to find a way around this.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning opted to send her to jail. Plainly this is within his discretion, inasmuch as Ms. Davis didn’t follow his earlier order. But plainly it is also the nuclear option. It’s hard not to notice, the contrast with 2004, when other clerks and mayors were cheered for issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in defiance of the state laws against it.

There is a view in polite society that if the issue is simply forced, opposition to same-sex marriage will wither away. Then again, polite society may not be that familiar with people who have a fear of God and are willing to suffer for it. This is not to say that Ms. Davis has it right about the law—federal, state or God’s. But a better appreciation for what is driving this woman might lead us to the kind of reasonable accommodations American families make every year at their own Thanksgiving dinner tables.