Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples, walked free Tuesday after five days, but she and her lawyer would not say whether she would abide by a court order not to interfere with the issuance of licenses by her office.
Five of her deputies in the Rowan County Clerk’s Office have been issuing marriage licenses since Friday, after telling Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court that they would do so. Judge Bunning sent Ms. Davis to jail last Thursday for defying his order, but in a two-page order on Tuesday, the judge said that he would release her because he was satisfied that her office was “fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.”
The order came with a stern warning: “Defendant Davis shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,” and that the deputies would report to him every two weeks. “If Defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.”
A short time later, Ms. Davis spoke briefly to a rally of cheering supporters outside the Carter County Detention Center here, where she had been held. She walked on stage to thunderous applause, the song “Eye of the Tiger” playing, her hands held aloft in triumph by her lawyer, Mathew D. Staver, and Mike Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor. She broke into tears.
“Thank you all so much, I love you all so very much,” she said after composing herself. “I just want to give God the glory. His people have rallied and you are a strong people. Just keep on pressing. Don’t let down. Because He is here.”
Ms. Davis walked out of the detention center about 2:35 p.m., flanked by Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Staver and her husband, Joe, and apparently dressed in the same clothes she wore during a court appearance last Thursday. Reporters asked repeatedly if she would abide by Judge Bunning’s order, and not interfere with the processing of licenses by her office, but Ms. Davis remained silent.
“She’s not going to violate her conscience,” Mr. Staver said, a possible indication that she would continue to defy the court. In fact, last week Mr. Staver told Judge Bunning that Ms. Davis would not abide by the resolution the judge had settled on: having her deputies issue licenses without her approval or signature.
Mr. Staver has argued that the problem is that the licenses say that they are issued by the Rowan County clerk, and she, as the clerk, will not authorize them. If that wording were eliminated, he said, she would not stand in the way of granting licenses.
“The court order did not resolve the underlying issue,” he said.
Although a Supreme Court decision in June legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, Ms. Davis said her beliefs as an Apostolic Christian kept her from sanctioning any such nuptials. She stopped issuing any marriage licenses to any couples, same-sex or not.
Credit:NYTimes
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