Kim Davis invoked ‘God’s authority’, not Supreme Court decision.
By Raif Karerat
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Defying the Supreme Court and invoking “God’s authority,” a Kentucky county clerk on Tuesday turned away two same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses, sparking an argument until sheriff’s deputies cleared the room.
Citing her religious objections, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue any marriage licenses since the Supreme Court in June ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry under the U.S. Constitution.
On Monday the same court rejected Davis’ request for an emergency order allowing her to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples while she appeals a federal judge’s order requiring her to issue them.
Eight people filed a federal lawsuit against Davis in July challenging her office’s policy of not issuing marriage licenses to any couples – gay or straight — and are now seeking a fine but not jail time for the rogue county clerk.
“Since Defendant Davis continues to collect compensation from the Commonwealth for duties she fails to perform,” lawyers wrote, “plaintiffs urge the Court to impose financial penalties sufficiently serious and increasingly onerous to compel Davis’ immediate compliance without further delay.”
On Tuesday, Davis declined licenses to two same-sex couples — two men and two women — who sought them at her office in the small city of Morehead. With a gaggle of TV cameras behind them, one of the couples, David Moore and David Ermold, confronted her across a desk.
“I’m not being disrespectful to you,” Davis told Moore, according to NBC News.
“You absolutely are,” he said. “You’re treating us like second-class citizens, is what you’re doing.”
Moore later asked whether she would deny a marriage license to an interracial couple.
“A man and a woman? No,” she said. She added that she was acting “under God’s authority.”
After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide on June 26, Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all the state’s clerks to comply immediately. However, Davis, claiming she did not want to discriminate, stopped issuing marriage licenses altogether.
A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, and an appeals court concurred. The Supreme Court’s subsequent rejection of Davis’ appeal was the first litigation to reach the justices since the monumental marriage ruling in June.
Joe Davis says his wife Kim has received death threats, and the couple changed their phone number. But he says he’s not afraid and believes in the Second Amendment.
According to the Associated Press, on Tuesday morning he stated, “I’m an old redneck hillbilly, that’s all I’ve got to say. Don’t come knocking on my door.”
Joe Davis went on to compared his wife to the biblical figures Paul and Silas, sent to prison and rescued by God.