Bevin calls for executive order on gay marriage

Republican gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin said Friday that elected officials have freedom of religion protections even when doing their jobs and that Gov. Steve Beshear should issue an executive order “to clarify that” and relieve county clerks of the responsibility of issuing marriage licenses.

But Bevin, after speaking to Greater Louisville Inc., the city’s chamber of commerce, refused on numerous occasions to say if, as governor, there are any laws he would refuse to carry out for moral reasons.

And Beshear said in a statement that it would be illegal for him to do what Bevin is suggesting he do.

The issue of gay marriage and whether clerks should be forced to issue marriage licenses, as required by state law, came up during a question-and-answer session that followed a speech to the business group at The Olmsted.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in July, struck down state laws that banned gay marriage. But several county clerks have stopped issuing marriage licenses to all couples, telling them they must get the licenses in another county.

This week U.S. District Judge David Bunning ruled that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis must issue the licenses despite her moral objections to gay marriage. Despite the order, Davis’ office still refuses to issue licenses.

“We need to defend the Constitution as it has been interpreted, whether we agree with it or not, but we also need to allow the rights of one to be mutually exclusive from ... the rights of others the First Amendment also affords,” Bevin said.

“In this case the Rowan County Clerk, Kim Davis, she has a constitutional right to religious liberty and this has been subjugated,” he said.

In his ruling, Bunning said Davis’ rights were not being abridged.

“Davis remains free to practice her Apostolic Christian beliefs. ... She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do,” he wrote. “However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County Clerk.”

Bevin called for Beshear to issue an executive order that would place the marriage licenses online and make them available to be picked up in clerks’ offices.

He said those wishing to get married could have the marriages “solemnized” by a variety of government and non-government workers and then simply filed in county clerks’ offices, much like a mortgage or deed.

Currently, clerks’ offices must actually issue the licenses.

On Friday, Beshear said in a statement that an executive order as Bevin suggested would violate the law.

“Mr. Bevin’s request is another example of how the Republican candidate just doesn’t understand the interrelationship between the Governor, the Attorney General, the county clerks and the legislature,” Beshear said in a statement.

“The legislature has placed the duty to issue a marriage license squarely on county clerks by statute,” he said. “I have no legal authority to change the statute by executive order.”

Following the event, Bevin said that “Religious liberty applies to all Americans. It is a First Amendment situation that applies to everybody.”

When asked if it would apply to him as governor and whether he would choose not to enforce any laws because of his religious beliefs, Bevin refused to answer and ultimately walked away.

He refused two other times to answer the question as he walked to his car.

Reporter Joseph Gerth can be reached at (502) 582-4702. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Gerth.