Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis
The Rowan County, Ky. county clerk who stopped issuing all marriage licenses so that she didn’t have to issue licenses to same-sex couples has lost the latest round of her battle in court.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied County Clerk Kim Davis a stay that would have allowed her to continue not issuing licenses in her office. Davis refused to issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples and refused to let anyone in her office issue them. After a lower court ruled against her, she stopped issuing all marriage licenses.
Davis claimed religious objections to same-sex marriage. She said she wasn’t inconveniencing anyone because they could just go to another county and get a marriage license.
In its decision the court wrote:
“It cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerkâs office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court. There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal.”
Davis has until the end of the month to begin issuing marriage licenses before she faces contempt of court.
