Gay couples ask judge to punish defiant clerk

Mike Wynn and Andrew Wolfson | The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch Kentucky clerk defy Supreme Court on gay marriage Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis squares off with David Moore and his partner David Ermold over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite a federal court order to do so.

MOREHEAD, Ky. — Defying the Supreme Court, a county clerk says she was acting under "God's authority" Tuesday while continuing to deny marriage licenses to gay couples, whose lawyers asked a federal judge to hold her in contempt of court.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to allow Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ office to deny the licenses because of her religious beliefs. However, on Tuesday morning, she turned away at least four couples.

"To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God's definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience," Davis said in a statement on the website of her lawyers, Orlando-based Liberty Counsel. "It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or Hell decision. For me, it is a decision of obedience."

David Moore and his partner, David Ermold, confronted Davis over the clerk's counter for more than 5 minutes as crowd of supporters shouted for Davis to do her job.

"This is overwhelming. It feels ridiculous," Moore said after being refused. "Who has to go through this to get married? This is 2015. This is America. This is what we pay taxes for — to be treated like this, to be discriminated against?"

Later in the morning, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union filed two motions in U.S. District Court to hold Davis in contempt of court and compel her to start issuing marriage licenses again to those who apply. They want her to be severely fined, not jailed.

"The duty of public officials is to enforce the law, not place themselves above it," the ACLU's legal director, Steven R. Shapiro, said in a statement. State law requires county clerks to issue marriage licenses to all eligible applicants.

An hour later Davis and her deputy clerks were notified to appear at an 11 a.m. ET Thursday hearing at U.S. District Court in Ashland, Ky., about an hour to the east. The county seat of Rowan County, Morehead, is about halfway between Lexington and Ashland and is home to 10,000-student Morehead State University; the county itself has about 24,000 residents.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear previously has told county clerks resistant to issuing same-sex marriage licenses to resign. Another couple has filed a misdemeanor official-misconduct complaint against Davis with Kentucky's attorney general, and Jack Conway, now running as the Democratic nominee for governor in this conservative state, will decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor.

As an elected official, Davis can’t be fired, but federal Judge David Bunning, who previously ordered her to stop denying marriage licenses, can impose potentially heavy fines and jail time. She could be impeached but the state Legislature is not in session and many lawmakers support her position.

The Kentucky County Clerk's Association has proposed legislation to remove the issuing of marriage licenses from county clerks' duties, relegating it to the state. County clerks now record and keep various legal records, including vehicle, hunting, fishing and marriage licenses; mortgages, deeds and liens; and voter-registration forms.

Davis won her $80,000-a-year office in November, running as a Democrat, and succeeded her mother who served as county clerk for 37 years, according to The Morehead News.

"She is basically telling Judge Bunning and the 6th Circuit and the Supreme Court that she doesn't care what they say," said William Kash Stilz Jr., a lawyer for one gay couple whom her office has turned away four times, including Tuesday.

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel's chairman, said the decision was Davis' to continue denying marriage licenses.

"Every decision in this case has been her decision," he said. "For her this is ... not a defiance-of-the-court issue. This is a conscience issue."

Monday's ruling from the Supreme Court, made without comment or apparent dissents, is an early indication that while some push-back against gay marriage on religious grounds may be upheld, the justices won't tolerate it from public officials. In one of the first tests of the court's June 26 decision upholding the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, Davis had argued that her Apostolic Christian faith prevented her from recognizing such marriages.

Rather than deny only same-sex couples, which the high court had said would be unconstitutional, Davis chose to stop issuing marriage licenses altogether — and same-sex and opposite-sex couples sued her.

“I have no animosity toward anyone and harbor no ill will," she said in her statement. "To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue. It is about marriage and God’s Word.”

But her detractors mock her moral stand, noting that Davis was married and divorced three times before marrying her fourth husband.

Davis argued before the courts that her refusal to issue licenses was not a major burden for any couple because Kentucky has more than 130 other marriage-licensing locations in other county clerks' offices and branches. But federal district and appeals court judges refused to grant her wish, forcing Davis to seek the Supreme Court's intervention.

At one point Tuesday, Moore and Ermold said they were not leaving without a license, and Davis told them they would be in for a long day. Then she began walking back toward her office where she remained much of the day with the door and blinds closed.

That's when Moore shouted for someone to call the police.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," he yelled. "Everyone in this office should be ashamed of themselves. Is this what you want to remember? Is this what you want to remember — that you stood up for this? That you children have to look at you and realize that you are a bigot and that you discriminated against people?"

Davis returned and talked to the couple.

"I'm willing to face my consequences, and you all will face your consequences when it comes time for judgment," she said. "It's plain and simple."

Ermold and Moore have been together for 17 years. Davis has rejected their attempts to apply for a marriage license four times, and they now are among those suing Davis.

“I feel sad. I feel devastated,” Ermold said outside as he stood with protesters. “I feel like I’ve been humiliated on such a national level, I can’t even comprehend it.”

Moore said he hopes to obtain a license before the end of 2015 although lawyers have told him that the case could drag on for years.

James Yates and Willliam Smith Jr. left the courthouse hand-in-hand after they also were refused a license for the fifth time in recent weeks. Yates appeared to be fighting back tears as he said the denial was too hard to talk about.

Their lawyer, Stilz, said they were jeered as they left the courthouse.

"James said he and Will had never seen such hatred," Stilz said.

Randy Smith, a local evangelist and Davis supporter, said her convictions are from God and he doubts she will reverse her policy. He was one of dozens of people backing the clerk and singing hymns in a demonstration outside.

Some of her supporters compared her Tuesday to the Biblical figures of Paul and Silas, imprisoned for their faith and rescued by God.

“It’s because of the love of Christ that Kim is not passing out marriage licenses," said one man in the crowd, Jack Templeman. "She’s even going against a man and woman to show the love of Christ. ... It’s all about the love of God. I see signs that it is about hate, but it’s really not. It’s about love.”

The high court's ruling doesn't end Davis' challenge, still pending at the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals — the same appellate court that previously allowed Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee to block same-sex marriage before Supreme Court justices overruled them. But it means that in the meantime, her office must issue marriage licenses.

"There is separation of church and state for a reason," said Jeanna Smith, who stood with Davis' critics. "My mother is a Sunday school teacher, and my mother even said Kim Davis needs to do her job or get out.”

Contributing: Richard Wolf, USA TODAY; The Associated Press