Despite order, office refuses to issue gay marriage license

MOREHEAD, Ky. -- A gay couple marched into the county clerk's office Thursday, carrying a federal judge's order that said the clerk can't deny them a marriage license based on her deeply held Christian beliefs.

Still, Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis' office turned them away.

Davis was among a handful of clerks across the country to cite deeply held religious beliefs in denying gay marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in June.

She was the first to be sued, and her attorneys vowed to keep fighting in a case legal experts have likened to the resistance some local officials put up five decades ago when the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage.

"We're going to keep coming back," Karen Roberts said after she was denied a license to marry April Miller, her partner of 11 years. "We're going to fight this to the very end."

Three other couples streamed into the clerk's office throughout the morning, and all were denied.

Staff in Davis' office said she was on vacation. Although she has six employees authorized to issue licenses, deputy clerk Nathan Davis said the office was advised by its attorneys with the Christian law firm Liberty Counsel to continue refusing same-sex couples as it appeals the judge's decision.

The staff handed one couple a Post-it note with Liberty Counsel's toll-free phone number.

Clerks and judges in pockets across the South halted issuing licenses in the days after the Supreme Court's decision. Some resigned rather than acknowledge a same-sex marriage. Others relented under the threat of legal action and began handing them out.

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has told defiant clerks, who are elected, to issue licenses or resign.

U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning said in his ruling Wednesday that Davis likely has violated the U.S. Constitution's protection against the establishment of a religion by "openly adopting a policy that promotes her own religious convictions at the expenses of others."