LICENCE TO MARRY
Gay couple to wed as clerk jailed
A gay couple walked out of a Kentucky courthouse with a marriage licence Friday morning, a day after the county's defiant clerk was hauled to jail for refusing to license same-sex marriages, citing “God's authority.”
William Smith Jr. and James Yates, a couple for nearly a decade, were the first to receive a marriage licence in Rowan County, ending a months-long standoff.
Unlike the vast majority of officials across the U.S., County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue licences since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June. The Apostolic Christian had turned away couples again and again, in defiance of a series of federal court orders.
But on Friday morning, Davis sat in a county jail, ordered there by a federal judge who found her in contempt for refusing to follow his order that she issue marriage licences to same-sex couples.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning offered to release Davis if she promised not to interfere with her employees issuing licences, but she refused. She told the judge her mother-in-law pleaded with her to go to church from her deathbed four years ago. She did, converting to Christianity and the belief that gay marriage is a sin.
Speaking to reporters before the licences were issued Friday, Davis's husband, Joe Davis, said his wife was in good spirits after her first night in jail.
Holding a sign that says “Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah,” Joe Davis said his wife would not resign from her position and would stay in jail for as long as it takes.
After sending Davis to jail, Bunning threatened each of her six employees with the same fate if they followed her lead and refused to comply with his order. Five of the six deputy clerks told Bunning they would issue the licences. The sixth clerk, Kim Davis' son, was the holdout.
At one point, Bunning looked at Davis's son, Nathan, and warned him not to interfere with his fellow employees on Friday. The judge said he did not want “any shenanigans,” like the staff closing the office for computer upgrades as they did briefly last week.
Bunning indicated Kim Davis would remain in jail at least a week, saying he would revisit his decision after the deputy clerks have had time to comply with his order.
Davis said she hopes the Legislature will change Kentucky laws to find some way for her to keep her job while following her conscience. But Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear again refused to call a special session of the Legislature on Thursday. State lawmakers will not meet until January.
Davis wept during her testimony in federal court Thursday, telling the judge she was “always a good person” but that she gave her heart to the Lord in 2011 and “promised to love Him with all my heart, mind and soul because I wanted to make heaven my home.”
“God's moral law conflicts with my job duties,” Davis told the judge before she was taken away by a U.S. marshal. “You can't be separated from something that's in your heart and in your soul.”
U.S. District Judge David Bunning offered to release Davis if she promised not to interfere with her employees issuing licences, but she refused.