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Kim Davis Jailed for Contempt in Kentucky Gay Marriage Dispute

By ALAN BLINDER NY TIMES

ASHLAND, Ky. — A federal judge here on Thursday ordered a Kentucky clerk jailed for contempt of court because of her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The clerk, Kim Davis of Rowan County, was jailed after a hearing before Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court. The contempt finding was another legal defeat for Ms. Davis, who has argued that she should not be forced to issue licenses that conflict with her religious beliefs.

“The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order,” Judge Bunning said. “If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.”

Judge Bunning said Ms. Davis would be released once she agreed to comply with his order and issue the marriage licenses.

Ms. Davis tearfully testified that she had not hesitated to stand by her religious views and defy the courts. “I didn’t have to think about it,” she said. “There was no choice there.”

At the hearing, Ms. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, was asked how she defined marriage.

“Marriage is between one man and one woman,” she replied, before a lawyer asked her whether she had “the ability to believe marriage is anything else.”

Ms. Davis offered a terse response: “No.”

Later, one of the women who has unsuccessfully sought a marriage license in Rowan County, April Miller, told Judge Bunning that Ms. Davis’s stand “marginalizes us again.”

Judge Bunning left little doubt about his thinking, and said Ms. Davis’s explanation for disobeying his order was “simply insufficient.”

“It’s not physically impossible for her to issue the licenses,” he said. “She’s choosing not to.”

While many observers had expected the judge to declare Ms. Davis to be in contempt, few believed he would jail her on Thursday. But Judge Bunning said he thought merely fining Ms. Davis would not be enough to prompt her compliance.

As marshals led her from the courtroom, Ms. Davis said, “Thank you, judge.”

Thursday’s court ruling was the first since the Supreme Court on Monday turned down Ms. Davis’s appeal of an Aug. 12 ruling by Judge Bunning directing her to issue marriage licenses. The justices’ decision was expected to clear the way for same-sex marriages in Rowan County. But on Tuesday, the clerk and her employees again refused to issue licenses in Morehead, the seat of Rowan County.

Within hours lawyers for the couples who had initially sued Ms. Davis asked Judge Bunning to hold her in contempt.

Supporters and opponents of Ms. Davis gathered outside the federal courthouse here Thursday hours before she was due to appear. One man waved a rainbow flag — a symbol of the gay rights movement — while another clutched a flag that said, “Liberty.”

“We’re supporters of the rule of the law,” said David Wills, a computer programmer from West Virginia who was first in line and said he had arrived at 4 a.m. for a hearing scheduled to begin seven hours later. “It’s just really important to me that people be treated equally, fairly.”

Ms. Davis’s supporters, prepared with an ice chest filled with water, also gathered ahead of a hearing they called critical to protecting religious liberty in Kentucky and elsewhere.

“They’re taking rights away from Christians,” Danny Kinder, a 73-year-old retiree from Morehead, said of the courts. “They’ve overstepped their bounds.”

“I’ve been praying about it, and we just have to turn it over to the Lord,” he said. “She has got to stand for what she believes, and I have to stand for what I believe, and I’m behind her 100 percent.”