Kim Davis

Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky
In office: January 5, 2015 – January 7, 2019
Preceded by: Jean W. Bailey
Succeeded by: Elwood Caudill Jr.

Personal details
Known for: Refusal to comply with a federal court order directing her to issue marriage licenses following Obergefell v. Hodges

Kimberly Jean Davis (née Bailey; born September 17, 1965) is an American former county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, who gained international attention in August 2015 when she defied a U.S. federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

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Same-sex marriage license controversy

Background

See also: Obergefell v. Hodges

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Fourteen counties in three Southern states continued to deny marriage licenses for same-sex marriage. The Alabama Supreme Court allowed the probate judges of ten counties in Alabama to deny such marriage licenses, the clerk of one Texas county chose to resign rather than issue such licenses, and the clerks of two counties in Kentucky were not issuing licenses due to paperwork delays. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear ordered all Kentucky county clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately.

Davis's reaction to same-sex marriage ruling



Davis asks for the video camera to be turned off as she refuses David Ermold and David Moore (pictured) a marriage license. Release of the video ignited national controversy.

Davis contacted Beshear, asking for an executive order to protect clerks who have moral objections against personally issuing such marriage licenses, as Kentucky law requires county clerks to issue marriage licenses in their names. She began turning away gay couples from her county office who were seeking marriage licenses. David Ermold and David Moore, a same-sex couple from Morehead, Kentucky and alumni of Morehead State University, released video footage on July 7, 2015 of Davis refusing to issue them a marriage license and requesting that they turn off their camera. The video went viral overnight.

The Family Foundation of Kentucky, a local political organization, held a protest rally against the ruling at the State Capitol in Frankfort on August 22, 2015, attended by several thousand people. The clerks of the two other Kentucky counties declined to speak to the rally crowd, but Davis spoke briefly, saying, "I need your prayers ... to continue to stand firm in what we believe." At a competing event several blocks away organized by the Fairness Campaign of Louisville, attendees celebrated the Supreme Court's decision and called upon government officials to uphold the law.

Rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Davis began denying marriage licenses to all couples.

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Contempt of court and jailing

Main article: Miller v. Davis § Contempt of court

Judge Bunning ordered Davis and her six deputy clerks to appear before him on September 3 after the six couples sought to have her held in contempt of court. Bunning ruled in the plaintiffs' favor and held Davis in contempt. The ACLU asked the court to fine Davis, but Bunning ordered her remanded in custody after the hearing. The judge said Davis would remain there until she complied with the court's order to issue marriage licenses. Bunning then spoke with each of the deputy clerks who reported to Davis. Only her son, Nathan Davis, told the judge he refused to comply with the court's order to start issuing marriage licenses; Bunning declined to hold him in contempt. After the hearing, U.S. Marshals transported Davis to the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson.

On Friday, September 4, the first day her office was open during her incarceration, Davis's deputy clerks began issuing marriage licenses to all couples. James Yates and William Smith Jr. (independently suing Davis) were the first couple in Rowan County to receive a marriage license since Obergefell. They were soon followed by other couples who were plaintiffs against Davis.

Through her Liberty Counsel attorneys, Davis filed an appeal of the order holding her in contempt of court, asking that she be released immediately from jail and that her name be removed from marriage licenses, allowing her deputies to issue them. Separately, Davis asked Governor Beshear to free her. The governor's office said that the conflict was a "matter between her and the courts"; Beshear added that he lacked the legal authority to either remove Davis from office or to relieve Davis of her statutory duties. Rowan County Democratic Judge-Executive Walter Blevins stated that he did not believe he would need to appoint a replacement for Davis, and that he believed the Attorney General of Kentucky and "the General Assembly will pass something where marriage licenses don't have anyone's name on them".

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Decisions and issues

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In July 2017, Davis was again sued for failing to issue a marriage license. The plaintiff, Mark Sevier, Vanderbilt University Law School graduate, was denied a license to marry a laptop computer. A similar Florida lawsuit was dismissed in May.

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Anti-Gay Lawyer Who Tried to Marry His “Porn-Filled” Laptop Sues Lafayette Parish Library, Claiming Drag Queen Reading Endorses Religion

By Lamar White, Jr. -September 20, 2018

Update: Sevier mistakenly named Tony Roswarski, in his capacity as mayor of the good people of Lafayette, Indiana, instead of Mayor-President Joel Robideaux of Lafayette, Louisiana, in his lawsuit.

Mark Christopher Sevier (a.k.a. Chris Sevier, a.k.a. Mark Sevier, a.k.a. Chris Severe), an attorney from Nashville who once claimed to be sexually attracted to his own computer- a “machinist” is how he described his sexual orientation- in an attempt to intervene in a series of same-sex marriage cases, filed suit against Teresa Elberson, the director of the Lafayette Parish Library, Gov. John Bel Edwards, and Attorney General Jeff Landry in an effort to prohibit the library from hosting a scheduled reading event featuring drag queens, according to a report from KADN, a Lafayette affiliate of Fox.

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AP

Man who tried to wed laptop pushes anti-porn bill across US

Mar 27, 2018, 6:53 AM | Updated: Jun 8, 2022, 5:16 pm

BY MICHELLE R. SMITH, ASSOCIATED PRESS

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A man who tried to marry his laptop in a legal fight against same-sex marriage is promoting legislation across the country to require a filter to block pornography and human trafficking websites that would be lifted if a user pays $20.

The measure pushed by Chris Sevier has been described as the “Elizabeth Smart Law” after the girl who was kidnapped from her Utah home as a teenager in 2002. But Smart wants nothing to do with it, and has sent a cease-and-desist letter to demand her name be removed from any promotion of the proposal.

The legislation has drawn criticism from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-pornography advocacy group. The center demanded last year that the Sevier stop claiming it supported his work.

Despite those issues, similar bills keep materializing in state legislatures. ... The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the idea, has tracked about two dozen similar bills in 18 state legislatures this year, none of which have passed. A bill in Rhode Island is scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday.

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