Same-sex marriage fight turns to clerks who refuse licenses

MOREHEAD, Ky. — Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis shut her blinds at work Tuesday morning to block the view of rainbow-clad protesters outside. They carried flowers and flags and signs saying, “You don’t own marriage.” They chanted, “Do your job.”

Moments later, she turned away a lesbian couple who walked in and asked for a license, telling them to try another county.

Davis is among a handful of public officials across the Bible Belt so repulsed by the thought of enabling a same-sex marriage that they are defying the U.S. Supreme Court and refusing to issue a license to anyone, gay or straight.

“It’s a deep-rooted conviction; my conscience won’t allow me to do that,” Davis told The Associated Press. “It goes against everything I hold dear, everything sacred in my life.”

Some judges and clerks in Alabama and Texas have done the same, ordering their offices in the name of religious liberty and free speech to issue no marriage licenses at all.

Legal experts are dubious that religious freedom arguments will protect public officials who not only refuse to participate due to their own beliefs, but also decline to make accommodations so that others who don’t object can serve the public instead.

Two things can happen if a Kentucky clerk won’t issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple: They can resign, or go to jail, said Sam Marcosson, a constitutional law professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville.

“If it means that you simply cannot fulfill your duties because of your religious beliefs, what is required of you is that you can no longer hold that office,” Marcosson said. “That applies to a judge, that applies to a senator, that applies to anyone who holds public office.”

Clerks and probate judges hold the keys to marriage in counties around the country, and in many rural areas, there are few alternatives for hundreds of miles. Couples turned away could ask a judge to order the clerk to issue the license, and a clerk who still refuses could be jailed for contempt of court, Marcosson said.

After the Supreme Court declared that marriage is a constitutional right equally held by all Americans, clerks in Arkansas and Mississippi resigned Tuesday rather than be forced to sign the licenses of gays and lesbians. Linda Barnette, the circuit clerk in Grenada County, Mississippi, for 24 years, wrote in her resignation letter that she is a “follower of Christ” and that she chooses “to obey God rather than man.”

Other reluctant Kentucky clerks gave up the fight on Tuesday.

Lawrence County Clerk Chris Jobe, who also serves as president of the Kentucky County Clerks Association, told The Courier-Journal in Louisville that he would resume issuing licenses for fear of being removed from office. Several other Kentucky clerks made similar concessions.

Even in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, where governors took the most vigorous stands against Friday’s Supreme Court’s ruling, clerks were issuing licenses.

But Davis stayed firm in denying one Tuesday to April Miller and Karen Roberts, a couple of 11 years who live in Morehead.

The office of Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway encouraged any couples who are turned away to seek private counsel. Miller and Roberts contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky to represent them.

“This is where we live; we pay taxes here, we vote here. And we want to get married here,” said Miller.

Outside Davis’ office, drivers honked and waved, flew rainbow flags from their windows and shouted “love must win!”

But a small group also gathered to support Davis, demonstrating the stark divide that remains in the most theologically conservative stretches of the South and Midwest, where state leaders fought hard for years to prevent same-sex marriage.

“Our country is on the wrong path, we as a people no longer exalt God,” said Dennis Buschman, who carried a Bible as he led a half-dozen people supporting the clerk’s defiance. He called homosexuality as “abomination” and a “serious, serious sin.”

Some protesters confronted them.

“God did not elect her, I did,” said Kevin Bass, a former police officer who arrived at the courthouse with his wife to support gay couples seeking licenses. “If she objects to doing her job, she can go.”

As a police officer for 20 years, he said, he could not choose which laws he liked to enforce.

Inside the county building, Davis seemed worried. She showed the AP a curse-laden hate mail she received overnight. When she took her oath of office in January and promised to uphold the state constitution, gay marriage wasn’t a part of the deal, she figures.

Davis would not say whether she’ll quit her job to stand up for her beliefs, but vowed never to issue a marriage license to a gay couple.

“No man can put a harness on his conscience. That is protected by the Kentucky Constitution, the very Constitution I took an oath to uphold,” she said.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.