The Rowan clerk's office on Thursday refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite Wednesday's federal judge ruling telling her to obey the law or else face a "dangerous precedent."
U.S. District Judge David Bunning in a 28-page opinion said that Rowan county clerk Kim Davis' deeply held Christian beliefs ought not to interfere with the law which has now made the same-sex marriage into a fundamental right.
Bunning wrote that the state is not restricting her religious activities or asking her to give personal approval to same-sex unions while signing the marriage forms, and that her faith need not interfere with the "purely legal" task.
"She may continue to attend church twice a week, participate in Bible study and minister to female inmates at the Rowan County jail," Bunning continued. "She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do. However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk."
However, Davis said that issuing a same-sex marriage license that has her signature is same as her approving the marriage, which violates her Christian beliefs.
Davis is one of the few clerks across the country to deny gay marriage licenses after the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage in June. However, Davis is one of the first to be sued even as her attorneys vowed to keep fighting the legal battle in the face of strong resistance from experts likening the issue to interracial marriage five decades ago.
Rowan county office has six other employees authorized to issue licenses, but the Christian law firm Liberty Counsel recommended the office not to issue licenses to same-sex couples as it has already filed a notice of appeal and plans to request a stay on the ruling.
Attorney with the Liberty Counsel, Roger Gannam, also said that Bunning's opinion amounts to government coercion, forcing Davis to abandon her sincerely held beliefs. "It seems like the ruling said there's a new right to same-sex marriage and it trumps all others," he said.
Four couples waited in the clerk's office during the Thursday morning, all of whom were denied the marriage license.
One of the couples, James Yates and William Smith Jr., held hands as they came to the office, with gay rights activists shouting, "Good luck!" on the outside and holding out placards, reading, "Clerk not clergy".
Another couple, David Moore and David Ermold, told the Courier-Journal, "We came here as anyone should be able to do because there is an injunction. Anyone should be able to come in, walk in there and get a marriage license."
