Kim Davis, the elected clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, seems ready to head to prison over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, citing her deeply held Christian beliefs.
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against the county clerk, leaving her with perhaps her hardest decision yet: Start handing out licenses or risk potential fines or even possible jail time. According to the Associated Press, Davis appears to have decided to continue defying the court’s orders, and has refused to issue the licenses.
After first hearing the decision, Davis remained in her office with the door closed and blinds drawn. But she emerged a few minutes later, telling the couples and the activists gathered there that her office is continuing to deny the licenses “under God’s authority.”
Davis asked David Moore and David Ermold, a couple who has been rejected four times by her office, to leave. They refused, surrounded by reporters and cameras.
“We’re not leaving until we have a license,” Ermold said.
“Then you’re going to have a long day,” Davis told him.
Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses in the days after the United States Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the nation. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her personal religious faith. A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, and an appeals court upheld that decision. Her lawyers with the Liberty Counsel filed a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking that they grant her “asylum for her conscience.”
Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 6th district, referred Davis’ request to the full court, which denied the stay without comment.
As Davis continues to turn away couples, they can ask a judge to hold her in contempt of court, which can carry steep fines or jail time.
Good for her! Pleasing , obeying God is above all else. God will see her through for standing up for what is RIGHT.
Your wrong,show where it says to do that in the Bible.You and Ms Davis are misguided CINOs
As a non American Citizen I’m trying to understand, is it not part of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States that there is suppose to be a wall of separation between church and state? Where Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” If that is the case, respecting her or anyone’s religious beliefs, she is not doing this on behalf or working in her church, but working for the State that her salary is being paid by the very tax payers she is refusing. If that is so, based on her faith, should she really be working for the state or public office and instead work for a private company or the church where she she can follow her beliefs freely? Otherwise allowing to combine religion with state, I’m not sure how this would be different from a old Islamic State where Islam does not separate religion from the state and a majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries’ political life?