Kim Davis, for those of you who don't know (congrats on waking from that coma!), is the elected Clerk of Rowan County, Ky., nestled in the Daniel Boone National Forest west of Lexington.

She was recently jailed – and released just this afternoon – for contempt of court for failing to comply with a federal judge's order that she issue marriage licenses to anyone legally allowed to marry. Davis has refused to issue such licenses to same-sex couples, believing it would make her complicit in those couples' sin. Here are eight things people have said about her that are just not true.

1. Kim Davis is not a victim of religious persecution

Despite what you may have heard, she is not in jail for her beliefs or for practicing her religion. After all, millions of Americans – though fewer than there used to be, if the polls are to be believed – think same-sex marriage is a sin, and they are not in jail because of it. Rather, Davis is in jail for not doing her job.

Religious persecution is real, and it happens all over the world and, on occasion, here in the United States. But it is not happening to Davis.

2. Kim Davis is not a constitutional scholar

She doesn't have to be, of course, since that's presumably why she hired lawyers. Her attorneys – from the Liberty Council, an extreme right-wing outfit – have claimed that the constitution guarantees Davis the right to refuse to issue the licenses. The suit that Davis filed – rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court itself – makes these claims about her first amendment freedoms, as do various press releases under Davis's name written in first person. She clearly believes that the U.S. Constitution gives her the right to impose her religion on others as part of her government job.

In fact, the first amendment, saying that the government cannot make any laws regarding the establishment or exercise of religion, plainly means the opposite: Kim Davis cannot use the Rowan County clerk's office to force others to follow her religion as she interprets it. Remember, many millions of Christians do not oppose same-sex marriage, and many churches perform such ceremonies.

The bigger story than Kim Davis's refusal to issue licenses is how much of an outlier she is. In the vast majority of counties in every state in the country, clerks are issuing licenses, even clerks who don't believe in same-sex marriage. They have a better understanding of how this works, recognizing that the religious part of themselves is and must be separate from their civic responsibilities.

3. Kim Davis is (perhaps) not aware she is being used to raise money

I happened across the Liberty Council website as I was writing this. In particular, it was this page, which confirmed that the various social media accounts claiming to be affiliated with Davis or her husband were fake. The press release takes up the top third of the page. The other two-thirds of the page is an ad for a Liberty Council-approved book that you can get free with your donation to them. Every "Liberty Alert" page about Davis is the same: a little bit about her and a lot about this great book you can get if you give them money.

Similarly-minded organizations are also using Kim Davis's name in fundraising pitches. Among them the National Organization for Marriage, which said, "Kim Davis is why we fight. Please stand with us to fight by making an immediate contribution." There is no shortage of leeches waiting to exploit Davis's cause.

4. Kim Davis is not fair game for criticism based on her past or looks

Many of my liberal friends have been happy to point out that Davis has been married four times and that she obviously doesn't know any gay men because look at her hair. This is terrible, especially the latter. There's no reason to be catty, especially in a situation like this where the pro-marriage side has and will retain the moral high ground.

As to the former, look, I am a huge fan of finding and exploiting hypocrisy when it is relevant or necessary to a broader narrative, mostly because moral issues and political conversations are not usually black-and-white and any advantage is good. But here it is black-and-white: Davis is failing to do a necessary part of her government job, and she is in trouble for it. There is nothing else you need to say.

5. Kim Davis is not really a big-D Democrat or, for that matter, even a small-D democrat

Many Davis supporters have gleefully pointed out that Kim Davis is a registered Democrat in Kentucky. Those supporters are all Republicans and completely opposed to anything the Democratic Party supports, so I don't know why they have that glee. Indeed, you can't find elected Democrats or any of the Dems' 2016 hopefuls claiming her or supporting her the way, say, Republican Mike Huckabee is doing.

Huckabee is even heading to Kentucky this week to visit Davis and hold a rally outside the jail where she's being held for her contempt of the court (I suspect he will also be raising money for his campaign there – see number three above). 

But more than that, Davis is breaking with the ideals of what it means to live in a small-d democracy, where celebrating civility and civic responsibility despite differences and diversity is perhaps the highest possible value. That whole "I may not agree with you, but I will fight for your right to believe it" business doesn't give Davis the right to refuse civil rights to others with different beliefs; really, it obliges her to do the opposite. Davis cannot seem to separate her own narrow belief from her obligation as a citizen of the wider world.

6. Kim Davis is not a Jew in a Nazi analogy

I don't know why we have to keep saying this – I mean, it's 2015 already, so come on, people, get it together – but there is exactly one person who is like Hitler: Hitler. There is exactly one group of people like the Nazis: the Nazis. There is exactly one thing like sending Jews and others to concentration camps and gas chambers: sending Jews and others to concentration camps and gas chambers.

So for Davis's attorney and other supporters to invoke the specter of the Holocaust in their defense of her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is just wrong. Although I guess it maybe helps explain Huckabee's affinity for Davis, since Huckabee himself got caught making a Nazi analogy in opposing the Iran nuclear treaty not long ago.

7. Kim Davis is not Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks

It hurts my soul to hear Davis compared to King and Parks, who organized against the petty tyrants of southern governmental institutions, because Davis is exactly such a petty tyrant.

When King wrote from a Birmingham jail about why he had come to Alabama to protest against the express wishes of the local clergy, he explained that injustice there is "a threat to justice everywhere." I ask, where is the injustice in Davis's case, aside from the injustice she herself visited on those who sought their legal right to marry? Seriously, Davis is much more like the bus driver than like Rosa Parks.

8. Kim Davis is not a hero or a martyr

Obviously, some people do and will see Davis as both of those (although technically, martyrs have to be dead first).

But for what? For refusing to take any of the dozens of opportunities she's had to get out of this mess without going to jail? For example, she could have just quit her job if it meant doing things she was opposed to doing. Justice Antonin Scalia (on the high court that denied Davis's last appeal) has laid out that line of reasoning for people whose jobs require moral compromise.

As a public school teacher, my job requires me, among other things, to keep stuff like my politics and my atheism out of the classroom even though I am outspoken about both in other forums like this one. So you know what? I do. I once had an entire class convinced I voted for Mitt Romney simply because a) I'm white and b) I refused to say who I did vote for. Sure, I skip the "under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance every time, but I don't draw attention to it, and I certainly don't bar my students from bringing bibles, rosaries or hijab to class.

And I certainly don't refuse to teach students who believe differently than I do. Heck, I've even tweeted pictures of my school's choir, in jolly red, next to a Christmas tree on the school Twitter account. Because that's my job. And if I didn't feel I could do my job in good conscience, I would resign and let someone else do it (and probably write about how wrong I felt it all was here on the Internet).

Kim Davis is not staring down dogs and water canons, not standing in front of a tank, not even sticking a daisy into the barrel of a machine gun. She's just being bad at her job. If being bad at your job makes your a hero, there are lots of people in line ahead of her for hero status.

Speaking of which, can I talk to you about Scott Walker?