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| Protesters waive a rainbow flag on the front lawn of the Rowan County Judicial Center, Tuesday, June 30, 2015, in Morehead, Ky. The protest was being held against Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who, due to the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States and her own religious beliefs, has refused to issue any marriage licenses in the county. |
MOREHEAD, Ky.
(AP) -- Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis shut her blinds at work Tuesday 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 told a lesbian couple who walked in asking for a license 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 seek a court order, and a
clerk who still refuses to issue a license could be jailed for contempt,
Marcosson said.
They also risk criminal
official misconduct charges, said Warren County Attorney Ann Milliken,
president of the Kentucky County Attorneys Association. The misdemeanor,
punishable by up to a year in jail, is committed when a public servant
"refrains from performing a duty imposed upon him by law or clearly
inherent in the nature of his office."
Casey
Davis, the clerk in Casey County, Kentucky, says he won't resign and
he'd rather go to jail than issue a marriage license to a same-sex
couple. None have yet come in to get one, he 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 an "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.
