Kim Davis released from jail, ordered not to interfere with same-sex marriage licenses

GRAYSON, Ky. — Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has been released from jail, five days after she was held in contempt by a federal judge amid an escalating standoff over marriage licenses. Davis was jailed at the Carter County Detention Center on Thursday after she refused to issue licenses to same-sex couples. The following day, her deputies began issuing the documents in her absence. As a condition of her release on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis not to interfere with the issuing of marriage licenses by her office.

“She will not violate her conscience,” Davis’ attorney Mat Staver said outside the jail. “Her conscience remains as clear today as it was when she first walked into these jail cells, and it will remain clear into the future.”

“She loves God, she loves people, she loves her work, and she will not betray any of those three,” Staver added.

A large crowd had gathered outside of the jail ahead of a planned rally Tuesday afternoon. Davis did not speak, but when asked whether it was “worth it,” she smiled and nodded her head: yes.

Five of the six clerks who work under Davis swore under oath that they could comply with the court’s order to issue marriage licenses. In a status report filed to Bunning’s court Tuesday, the couples who had filed suit against Davis after she first denied them marriage licenses said they were able to obtain them.

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In Tuesday’s order, Bunning said he is satisfied that the county clerk’s office is now complying with the court’s ruling. He also ordered that 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” in Rowan County. If she does interfere, Bunning wrote, the court will consider “appropriate sanctions.”

The news of the judge’s order was slow to spread outside the Carter County Detention Center, where hundreds gathered for a 3 p.m. rally where Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee would speak. Some had gathered as early as 8 a.m. and had driven from as far away as Texas.

Following the new order from Bunning, Huckabee arrived at the jail to visit with Davis, who was elected as a Democrat. Republican presidential contender and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also appeared outside of the detention center. After her release, Huckabee praised Davis for being willing to go to jail in order to maintain the “clarity of her conscience.”

“I feel that she has shown more courage than most any politicians I know and most any pastor that I know,” Huckabee said. “We stand with Kim today with gratitude and appreciation.”

In a statement to The Washington Post, the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued on behalf of several gay couples, said it achieved what it set out to do by suing Davis. “The goal was to get Ms. Davis to issue licenses, and to stop imposing her religious beliefs on the citizens she was elected to serve,” attorney Dan J. Canon told The Post in an e-mail. “That goal has been achieved, for now.” He added: “We are hopeful that Ms. Davis will comply with the Court’s orders and let her deputies continue to do their jobs.”

The licenses issued Friday were altered to remove Davis’s name. They now say they are issued in the office of “Rowan County, Rowan County County Clerk.” But an attorney for Davis argued last week that without Davis’s approval as county clerk, the licenses are invalid. “They are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Mat Staver said on Friday.

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The five clerks who complied with the court’s order to issue marriage licenses have now been ordered to file additional status reports to the court every 14 days.

In a statement, LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign said Davis has “no legal basis” to refuse to comply with the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision which legalized same-sex marriage. “The overwhelming majority of public officials across this country are following the law, and history will not judge her kindly,” said HRC Legal Director Sarah Warbelow. “It’s far past time for this needless ordeal to end.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Davis’s attorneys had filed a document petitioning a U.S. Circuit Court to overrule Bunning’s contempt order.

Davis, an Apostolic Christian who opposes same-sex marriage, has argued that she is exercising her religious freedom by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. She has also sought a “remedy” from state officials that would exempt her from the mandate that all Kentucky county clerks issue marriage licenses in the state.

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Outside of the jail, her supporters cheered, waved American flags, carried crosses and signs. “If this goes through, if the Supreme Court continues to override society and what the majority thinks, then all you’ve got left is tyrannical authority,” said Leonard Stone, 65, a Christian minister from Wolf County, Ky. “She should be released. That’s simple. The Supreme Court doesn’t have the right to write laws. She’s in there unconstitutionally.”