A rebellion is brewing in the South.
In Alabama, Texas, Kentucky and Nebraska, a handful of judges and county clerks are bucking the Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the U.S. just two weeks ago. In at least 20 counties in these states, same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses have been turned away at the courthouse.
April Miller and Karen Ann Roberts were the first to be turned down in Rowan County, Kentucky, where they have lived for the past nine years. At 8:30 a.m. on June 30, five days after Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the U.S. Constitution grants same-sex couples “equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” Miller and Roberts were told by a clerk that Rowan County was no longer issuing marriage licenses -- to anyone.
The governor and attorney general of Kentucky had each already released statements ordering clerks to fall in line with the Supreme Court ruling. But Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused to comply. Although she has stopped issuing licenses to straight couples as well as gay ones, it’s clear that her decision was motivated by the recent ruling. "My conscience won't allow me” to issue same-sex marriage licenses, Davis said Tuesday, according to ABC News. "It goes against everything I hold dear, everything sacred in my life." (Davis did not respond to The Huffington Post's requests for an interview; you can watch a video of her turning down another gay couple here.)
Last week, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Davis on behalf of Miller and Roberts, as well as three other Rowan County couples who have been turned away, two of them straight. A similar lawsuit has been filed in Texas, where state Attorney General Ken Paxton is encouraging county clerks, judges and justices of the peace to refuse to grant licenses. A group of 150 Texas attorneys has sent Paxton a letter threatening to file a complaint with the State Bar of Texas, arguing that the bar requires attorneys to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
North Carolina and Utah have recently passed laws requiring clerks who object to same-sex marriage for religious reasons to stop performing marriage duties for all couples for a six-month period. However, advocates don’t see this as a top concern. These laws have provisions ensuring that same-sex couples can get marriage licenses from other officials in their counties.
“Individual employees can be exempt, but the county cannot be; someone has to issue licenses,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia who has helped write state religious freedom bills, in an email to HuffPost. “Elected clerks in counties where the whole county is refusing to issue licenses will eventually resign or give in.”
Casey Davis, a 42-year-old clerk in Casey County, Kentucky (and no relation to Kim), is not only refusing to award marriage licenses to any couple, gay or straight -- he’s also barring his staff from issuing licenses in his stead. “I think it would be hypocritical of me to say, ‘I can’t do this but you go ahead and do it,’” he told HuffPost.
The wave of clerks opposing the recent Supreme Court ruling is only the latest example of officials refusing to grant marriage licenses because of their personal beliefs. As recently as 2009, a Louisiana justice of the peace was forced to resign after he refused to marry an interracial couple. According to attorneys with LGBT advocacy groups, the clerks who have taken a stand against same-sex marriage in recent weeks could be fined or removed from their jobs. In some states, they might even face jail time.
So far, Casey Davis seems willing to risk those consequences. “All I want to do is work at my job, raise my family and be able to use my conscience as I do my job as I always have,” he said, “and at the end of the day, go home and turn around and say I did the best I could.”