Kim Davis hopes her case overturns Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision. Who is she?
Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who made national headlines nearly a decade ago for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses, is back in the news.
Davis and her legal team hope her case can be used as grounds to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same sex marriage in 2015.
Here’s what you need to know about Davis and her court case:
Who is Kim Davis?
Davis, 58, worked as a deputy in the Rowan County Clerk’s Office in Morehead for many years under her mother, who was the clerk, before being elected clerk herself in 2014 as a Democrat.
County clerks handle a variety of functions in Kentucky, including recording deeds, issuing vehicle license plates, issuing marriage licenses and conducting elections.
Davis changed her party registration to Republican after being elected.
Why is she well-known?
In June 2015, the U.S Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
The high court, ruling in cases combined out of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee, said the U.S. Constitution gives same-sex couples the right to marry.
However, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to several gay couples.
Davis said she is an evangelical Christian and believed that marriage is only legitimate between a man and a woman. She said issuing a marriage license under her name to a gay couple would violate her beliefs and rights.
U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning ordered Davis jailed for contempt of court for refusing to follow his order to issue marriage licenses in compliance with the Supreme Court decision.
Bunning allowed her release five days later after a deputy clerk issued marriage licenses to gay couples.
What was the reaction?
Davis became a lightning rod for opposing camps, condemned by many on the left and advocates for gay rights as a symbol of intolerance and even hypocrisy — after being married four times — but celebrated by the religious right for what many saw as a courageous stand for religious liberty.
Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, along with Matt Bevin, the Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky that year, were on hand at a noisy rally when Davis was released from jail.
“She cannot allow her name to be associated with something that conflicts with God’s” laws, Davis’ attorney, Mat Staver, said at the rally. “Today Kim Davis is a free woman but her conscience did not change . . . to get freedom.”
But Steve Beshear, a Democrat who was governor at the time, said he didn’t think Davis’ religious liberties had been trampled.
“You had a public official who voluntarily ran for election to that office, was paid $80,000 a year, and statutes set out her duties,” Beshear said. “She then decided to pick out the duties she would perform, and not perform some of the others.”
A poll at the time found that 51%of Kentucky respondents said Davis should be required to issue marriage licenses and 42% said she should not, with 7% percent not sure.
What ultimately happened?
State lawmakers changed the marriage license form so that it does not display the clerk’s name. That was a key complaint by Davis — that she didn’t want her name on a license for a gay couple.
Several couples sued Davis for refusing to issue licenses and she lost reelection in 2018.
What happened with the lawsuits?
In one case, a judge ordered the state to pay a total of $260,104 in fees and expenses to attorneys who represented people who sued Davis.
Another case has lasted far longer. It involves a gay couple from Rowan County, David Ermold and David Moore.
Moore and Ermold and another couple, James Yates and Will Smith, sued Davis in federal court, arguing that her refusal to issue marriages licenses to them subjected them to humiliation and emotional distress.
The cases took years to get to a judgment because Davis appealed some of Bunning’s rulings along the way.
For instance, Davis argued that as a public official she was protected from lawsuits under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
Bunning agreed she had that protection in her official capacity, but was not shielded personally by “qualified immunity.”
That is a doctrine that shields public officials from personal liability unless they “violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” according to a court ruling.
The ruling exposed Davis to liability.
She appealed, but the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Bunning, saying the right of same-sex couples to marry was clear and Davis understood it.
Bunning also ruled that Davis violated the two couples’ rights and rejected her religious-liberty argument.
“Ultimately, this Court’s determination is simple — Davis cannot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official,” Bunning said.
The case finally went to trial in September 2023 on the issue of how much Davis would have to pay the couples, if anything.
Bunning swore in two jury panels to hear the separate claims by each couple.
One panel ruled Yates and Smith should not get any damages from Davis, but the other panel ruled she should pay Ermold and Moore $50,000 each.
Buning later tacked on $260,104 in fees and expenses for their attorneys.
Davis is now appealing the decision to the U.S. 6th Circuit. She and her attorneys hope the case will ultimately become a vehicle to overturn the right of same-sex couples to marry.
