Kim Davis returns to work, will not authorise deputies to marry gays
Kim Davis with Mike Huckabee and Mat Staver, the head of the Liberty Counsel (Getty)
Adamantly homophobic county clerk Kim Davis returns to work today, and has vowed to keep blocking her deputies from issuing marriage licences to gay couples.
Davis, who spent six days in jail for contempt of court after refusing to obey several orders instructing her to stop discriminating against gay couples, returns to work at Rowan County today.
She faces a challenge, however, if she wants to stop her deputies from issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples, as Brian Mason, one of the deputies, who have been ordered to issue marriage licences in Davis’ absence, said he would ignore her if she told him not to issue licences to gay couples.
Speaking outside her office this morning, Davis said: “I am here before you this morning as I return to work to say that I love my lord Jesus, I love all people, and I love my job. I want to continue to serve all three as I have tried to do until now….”
“A very simple accommodation I have proposed is to remove my name and title as the Clerk of Rowan County completely off the marriage license. These license could be issued under another authority, including perhaps the Commonwealth of Kentucky, or Governor Beshear himself…Because my pleas for a modest accommodation have been refuse.
“I have been required to do that which my conscience forbids. As a result I have spent six days in jail because I could not abandon my faith.”
Continuing, she said: “I’m here before you this morning with a seemingly impossible choice, that I do not wish on any of my fellow Americans, my conscience, or my freedom. I have thought and prayed very hard about what to do…I don’t want to have this conflict, I don’t want to be in the spotlight, and I certainly don’t want to be a whipping post. I’m no hero, I’m just a person who has been transformed by the grace of God, and who wants to work, be with my family. I just want to serve my neighbours quietly, without violating my conscience. And so this morning I am forced to fashion a remedy that reconciles my conscience with Judge Bunning’s orders.”
Davis went on to say that she would not authorise any of her deputies to issue marriage licences to gay couples.
“Effective immediately, and until an access is provided by those with authority to provide it, any license issued by my office will not issued or authorised by my me. I want the whole world to know, no mistake about it, that my deputy clerks do not have the authority to issue a license whatsoever. If any of them feels that they must issue an unauthorised license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice and I will take no action against them. However…Any unauthorised license that they will issue will not have my name, my title, or my authority on it, Instead, they will say that they are issued pursuant to a federal court order.”
She went on to plead with the Governor of Kentucky to allow her to discriminate, saying: “I urge Governor Beshear, the legislature, and the court to intervene. They have the authority to provide these types of accommodations.”
