Park Geun-hye

SEOUL, South Korea — The shadowy woman at the center of President Park Geun-hye’s worst political scandal apologized for her “wrongdoings” on Sunday. Hours later, Park fired her chief of staff and seven other presidential aides in an effort to regain public trust, a day after thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to call for her removal from office.

Choi Soon-sil, a longtime associate of Park widely seen here as a shamanlike adviser for the leader, returned to South Korea on Sunday from Europe, where she has been in hiding since the scandal erupted weeks ago. Choi’s lawyer, Lee Gyeong-jae, said she would present herself to prosecutors for questioning on her murky ties with Park, which are at the heart of the president’s troubles.

“She apologizes deeply for causing the people humiliation and despair,” Lee said of Choi in a news conference.

Lee said she also apologized for “her wrongdoings,” but he did not elaborate. Park has been accused of letting Choi, a private citizen with no security clearance or background in policymaking, advise on crucial state affairs. Choi, 60, has also been accused of using her influence with Park to plant her associates in the government, including the presidential office, and to coerce big businesses to donate millions of dollars each to the two foundations she controls.

On Sunday, Park carried out a major reshuffle of her presidential staff in recognition of “the graveness of the current situation,” her office said.

Those dismissed included Ahn Chong-bum, senior presidential secretary for policy coordination, who was accused of collaborating with Choi in pressuring businesses to donate to her foundations. Also fired were three lower-tier aides known as the three gatekeepers for their purported role in controlling who Park met with and what information reached her. All three are considered close to Choi.

Despite the reshuffling, Ms. Park did not replace her aides on foreign policy and national security.

Pressure has been mounting on her to overhaul her leadership style and government to regain some of her lost authority. On Sunday, her governing Saenuri Party asked her to form a new cabinet with opposition parties.

Ms. Park’s plummeting political fortunes were dramatized on Saturday when prosecutors raided the homes of a few presidential aides who are believed to be under Ms. Choi’s sway and areaccused of collaborating in influence-peddling. Prosecutors also appeared at the Blue House, Ms. Park’s presidential office and residence in Seoul, the capital, demanding that they be allowed to search aides’ offices there for criminal evidence.

The Blue House refused them entry, but the prosecutors returned on Sunday, pressing the same demand — a highly unusual move for prosecutors, who have long been accused of being servile political tools of the sitting president.

Also on Saturday, at a rally in downtown Seoul, thousands marched on the Blue House to chants of “Down with Park Geun-hye!” and “Impeach Park Geun-hye!” Shoving matches erupted when riot police officers blocked the marchers.

Organizers said 30,000 people had attended the demonstration, while the police estimated the crowd at 12,000.

South Koreans are proud of the global economic powerhouse they built from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War and the democracy they achieved after decades of brutal rule by military dictators. Those dictators included Ms. Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, who led the country from 1961 until his assassination in 1979.

Ms. Park’s scandal is seen as particularly inflammatory because it hurts that pride.

On Saturday, many demonstrators said they felt ashamed to be South Korean. Speaking to the crowd, Lee Jae-myeong, the mayor of Seongnam, a city just south of Seoul, said the president had humiliated the people by relying on a “shamanlike figure” to handle important state affairs, referring to Ms. Choi.

“We may be weak, we may be poor, but we have not lost our pride yet,” Mayor Lee said to cheers from the crowd. “President Park has lost her authority as president, and she must step down.”

Little had been known about Ms. Choi, except that she is the daughter of a minor religious cult leader and befriended Ms. Park in the 1970s, when Ms. Park’s father was still in power. Ms. Choi’s father, Choi Tae-min, who died in 1994 at the age of 82, had been accused of manipulating Ms. Park, though Ms. Park has defended him as a patriot and a mentor. Some critics believe that Ms. Choi has inherited her father’s Rasputin-like role in Ms. Park’s life.

Major political parties have so far refrained from calling for Ms. Park to step down. Her single five-year term ends in February 2018.

All recent South Korean presidents have ended their terms in ignominy, disgraced by scandals that often implicate their children as well. Many South Koreans had hoped that Ms. Park, the country’s first female president, who is unmarried and has no children, would be an exception.

Same Sex Maarrige

After five nights in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, walked free Tuesday to a roar of cheers from thousands of supporters, but she and her lawyer would not say whether she would continue to defy court orders and try to block the licenses.

Outside the jail here, a planned demonstration by people who, like Ms. Davis, say that gay marriage violates their religious beliefs turned buoyant when she was released, the sense of triumph mixed with a dose of presidential politics.

She walked onstage to thunderous applause, the song 「Eye of the Tiger」 playing on loudspeakers, her hands held aloft by one of her lawyers, Mathew D. Staver, and Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor. Another Republican presidential contender, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, was also in attendance but largely overshadowed.

Ms. Davis broke down in tears and spoke only briefly, not addressing the issues in her case.

「I just want to give God the glory,」 she told the crowd, some waving white crosses. 「His people have rallied, and you are a strong people. Just keep on pressing. Don』t let down. Because He is here.」

But her release came with a stern warning from Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court, who last Thursday sent her to jail and directed five of her deputies to issue licenses without her approval. In a two-page order on Tuesday, he wrote that he was setting her free because her office was 「fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,」 but would respond to any further defiance.

「Defendant Davis shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,」 he wrote. 「If Defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.」

Last week, one of Ms. Davis』s lawyers signaled in court that Ms. Davis would not consent to her office processing marriage licenses under existing guidelines. On Tuesday, reporters asked repeatedly if she would abide by the latest court order. Ms. Davis remained silent, and Mr. Staver said, 「She』s not going to violate her conscience.」

The central issue for Ms. Davis is that the licenses say they are issued by the Rowan County clerk, and she, as the clerk, will not authorize them. If that feature were eliminated, Mr. Staver said, she would not stand in the way of granting licenses. 「The court order did not resolve the underlying issue,」 he said.

He called once again on Gov. Steven L. Beshear, a Democrat in his final year in office, to change the wording of the licenses. Mr. Beshear has said he does not have that authority and will not intervene in 「a matter between her and the courts.」

The Legislature could change the law on marriage licenses to accommodate objections like Ms. Davis』s. But the governor has said he will not call a special legislative session this year, which he said would be a waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Staver says that licenses issued by Ms. Davis』s office without her approval are void, possibly signaling another legal fight. The Rowan County attorney and the state attorney general say they are valid.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Ms. Davis said her Apostolic Christian faith prevented her from approving such unions, so her office stopped issuing marriage licenses to any couples, same-sex or opposite-sex.

After Judge Bunning ruled last month that she must issue the licenses, a federal appeals court and then the Supreme Court declined to stay his order, pending her appeal. When she maintained her resistance, he held her in contempt and sent her to jail.

Her argument and incarceration have resonated deeply among Christian conservatives who say they fear an erosion of religious liberty, and transformed an obscure local official in a rural corner of Kentucky into a national symbol of unyielding resistance to same-sex marriage.

Of the two presidential contenders who attended the rally, it was Mr. Huckabee, making his second White House run, who grabbed the political spotlight. Before Ms. Davis appeared in front of the crowd, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Staver took the stage to tell the crowd, in unison, 「Kim Davis is free.」

When Mr. Cruz, who met with Ms. Davis, exited the Carter County Detention Center, a throng of journalists beckoned him toward their microphones, but an aide to Mr. Huckabee blocked the path of the senator, who appeared incredulous.

Soon after, Ms. Davis emerged, apparently wearing the same clothes she had worn in court Thursday. Mr. Huckabee stuck close by her side, along with Mr. Staver and her husband, Joe, as they approached the reporters and cameras. Ms. Davis remained silent, letting Mr. Staver and Mr. Huckabee do the talking.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, cast the dispute as a matter of religious freedom threatened by overreaching courts, while Mr. Cruz stood to the side, keeping an unusually low profile.

「If you have to put someone in jail, let me go,」 Mr. Huckabee told the cheering crowd. 「Every one of us will have to decide whether we want to keep this great country or whether we want to surrender and sacrifice it to tyranny.」

Ms. Davis said, 「Thank you all so much; I love you all so very much.」

This small town near the West Virginia border, population 4,200, swelled with people arriving for the rally, along with a smaller group supporting same-sex marriage, bringing traffic to a crawl. One entrepreneur offered parking spaces for $20 each.

Many demonstrators, few of them expecting that Ms. Davis would be released, brought lawn chairs. On one side, there were signs with Bible verses and one comparing the Supreme Court to the Islamic State, while a man with a megaphone urged people to repent. On the other, people waved signs saying 「God Loves!!!! Period!」

Linda Clark, 40, a same-sex marriage opponent from Olive Hill, Ky., said, 「We』re happy for God to raise an army for what the majority of people want.」

A number of other local officials in several states, including two other county clerks in Kentucky, have taken stances similar to that of Ms. Davis, though the litigation around her has gone furthest and drawn the most attention. Chris Jobe, the president of the Kentucky County Clerks Association, has said that half of the state』s 120 county clerks said they objected on religious grounds to issuing licenses to same-sex couples, though most of them have not said they will defy the courts.

「It』s time for all God-fearing Americans to take a stand for truth, just like Kim Davis,」 Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said at the rally.

But Ria Mar, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the primary case against Ms. Davis, said in an email that the courts had spoken clearly. 「To the extent any other clerks are still refusing to follow the law and treat everyone equally, there is simply no basis for further delay,」 she said.

Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, a major gay rights group, said that her main concern was that Ms. Davis and others in her position could start to treat license applications differently. 「She might start issuing licenses to opposite-sex couples and making her deputies issue licenses to same-sex couples,」 Ms. Warbelow said.

For Republican presidential candidates, Ms. Davis』s situation has become a litmus test of commitment to religious freedom. Those who are relying on the support of social conservatives have ardently backed her cause. Others have expressed respect for her views while saying the law must be heeded.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have also criticized Ms. Davis』s jailing. Some have suggested finding alternative ways to avoid standoffs in cases where elected officials say they are being required to act against their religious beliefs; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said Tuesday that Ms. Davis should be moved into a different role so that her religious freedom is protected while government continues to function. Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, said last week that the rule of law should be paramount and that Ms. Davis might want to consider changing jobs.

Donald J. Trump did his best not to offend evangelical Christians who have been strong supporters of his candidacy. He called it a 「sticky situation」 and said he saw both sides of the issue, before adding that ultimately, 「we are a nation of laws」 and that someone in the clerk』s office must issue the licenses.

http://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20150909/cc09kentucky/zh-hant/