A Kentucky clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses has exhausted one more avenue, and must issue marriage licenses starting next week.
A three judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has just refused Rowan County clerk Kim Davis‘ request for a stay on a lower federal court judge’s ruling ordering her to issue marriage licenses to couples regardless of gender.
Davis claims issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples is a violation of her religious liberty. Her attorneys claim doing so would “substantially and irreparably” burden Davis’ “conscience and deeply-held, sincere religious beliefs which dictate to Davis that such unions are not and cannot be ‘marriage.'”
The decision from the 6th Circuit (above) states the “injunction operates not against Davis personally, but against the holder of her office of Rowan County Clerk. In light of the binding holding of Obergefell, it cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County Clerk’s office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court.”
UPDATE:Â Breaking: Rowan County Clerk Just Refused Marriage License To Same-Sex Couple
“There is thus little or no likelihood that the Clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal,” the judges state.
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Thanks to Equality Case Files for the order from the 6th Circuit
Image by Mike Wynn via Twitter