The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples has taken reasonable steps to comply substantially with a judge’s orders and should not face further contempt citations, her attorneys said on Tuesday.
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Steve Beshear should issue an executive order to exempt Kim Davis and other clerks from issuing licenses to same-sex couples due to religious objections.
Davis stopped issuing marriage licenses after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
That prompted the couples who originally sued her to ask the judge in late September for an order directing her office to revert back to the original forms. Only a deputy’s name is on the form – and not his title – with a place for him to initial rather than to use his signature.
Lawyers for Davis, whose meeting with Pope Francis during his trip to the United States last month sparked widespread debate when it became public, said in a court filing that state-elected officials see the licenses as valid.
Those changes, the couples told the judge, were inconsistent with state rules for marriage licenses, raising potential questions about their validity.
“This sanction is reserved exclusively for situations of last resort-not a hammer to be used while Davis’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint has been stayed, her consolidated appeals are pending in the Sixth Circuit, and licenses that are recognized as valid by the Kentucky governor and Kentucky attorney general are being issued in Rowan County”.
Davis said she would play no role in issuing marriage licenses when she returned to her job.
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But Christman said the ACLU can not “allege that Rowan County has issued or is issuing marriage licenses to the “LGBT community” that are in any way different from licenses issued to the ‘non-LGBT community'”.
