Kentucky Clerk Stays in Jail After Rejecting Compromise

A defiant county clerk went to jail Thursday for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, but five of her deputies agreed to comply with the law, ending a two-month church-state standoff in Rowan County, Kentucky.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning said he had no choice but to jail Kim Davis for contempt after she insisted that her “conscience will not allow” her to follow federal court rulings on gay marriage.

“God’s moral law conflicts with my job duties,” Davis told the judge. “You can’t be separated from something that’s in your heart and in your soul.”

The judge later tried to keep Davis out of jail after all. He rejected her lawyer’s argument that deputy clerks cannot act against her authority, and called each one before him to declare their intentions. Faced with potential fines or jail, all but the clerk’s son, Nathan Davis, promised to comply.

The judge said Nathan Davis’ refusal wouldn’t matter and that his mother could go free as long as she promises not to interfere with issuing of marriage licenses to all couples. But Kim Davis rejected the offer, her attorneys later said.

With that, the hearing ended, and gay and lesbian couples vowed to appear at the Rowan County clerk’s office yet again Friday, to see if the deputy clerks keep their promises.

The Clerk: Kim Davis

As word of Davis’ jailing reached the crowds outside the federal courthouse, hundreds of people chanted and screamed, “Love won! Love won!”

Bunning said it would set up a “slippery slope” to allow an individual’s ideas to supersede the courts’ authority.

“Her good faith belief is simply not a viable defense,” Bunning said. “I myself have genuinely held religious beliefs … but I took an oath.”

“Mrs. Davis took an oath,” he added. “Oaths mean things.”

Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, an organization that advocates in court for religious freedoms. Before she was led away, Davis explained that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June that legalized gay marriage nationwide conflicts with the vows she made when she became a born-again Christian.

“I promised to love Him with all my heart, mind and soul because I wanted to make heaven my home,” Davis said.

April Miller, denied a marriage license four times by Davis or her deputies, testified that she voted for Kim Davis, but wants to be treated equally in the community where she lives. One of the deputy clerks told her to apply in a different county, she said, but “that’s kind of like saying we don’t want gays or lesbians here. We don’t think you are valuable.”

Faced with the possibility of fines, jail time or the loss of their jobs, five of the clerks promised to issue the licenses.

“I don’t really want to, but I will comply with the law,” said one, Melissa Thompson. “I’m a preacher’s daughter and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she added. “I don’t hate anybody … None of us do.”

Davis, an Apostolic Christian whose critics mock her for being on her fourth marriage, stopped serving all couples wanting to marry after the Supreme Court ruling, even though courts consistently ruled against her. But many supporters have rallied around her, including Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal.

“People are calling the office all the time asking to send money,” she testified. “I myself have not solicited any money.”

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 unless the governor convenes a costly special session, they won’t meet until January. “Hopefully our legislature will get something taken care of,” she told the judge.

Until then, the judge said, he has no alternative but to keep her behind bars.

“The legislative and executive branches do have the ability to make changes,” Bunning said. “It’s not this court’s job to make changes. I don’t write law.”

Davis served as her mother’s deputy in the clerk’s office for 27 years before she was elected as a Democrat to succeed her mother in November. As an elected official, she can be removed only if the Legislature impeaches her, which is unlikely in a deeply conservative state.

Former Republican President George W. Bush nominated David Bunning for a lifetime position as a federal judge in 2001 when he was just 35 years old, halfway through his father’s first term in the Senate. But Bunning has been anything but a sure thing for conservative causes, ruling against a partial-birth abortion ban and in favor of a Gay-Straight high school club.