A US judge has ruled that former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis violated the rights of two gay couples when she refused to issue them a marriage licence.
The case stems back to 2015. In the wake of the US Supreme Court deciding that same-sex couples could wed, the Rowan County based clerk ordered that no marriage licences would be granted because of her Christian beliefs.
The US district judge, David Bunning, issued the ruling on Friday in two longstanding lawsuits involving Davis, the former clerk of Rowan county, and two same-sex couples. A jury trial will still need to decide on any damages.
Davis had argued that she should be exempt from civil prosecution because she was exercising her personal constitutional right to freedom of religion.
Judge Bunning said 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.”
The couples in this litigation are seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as legal fees, which have become an increasingly larger burden over the last seven years.
“It is readily apparent that Obergefell recognizes Plaintiffs’ 14th-amendment right to marry,” the judge wrote, referencing the Supreme Court decision that lead to marriage equality in the USA. “It is also readily apparent that Davis made a conscious decision to violate plaintiffs’ right.”
Davis was briefly jailed in 2015 when she continued to refused to issue marriage licences, even after a judge ordered her to life her ban. The position Davis held was an elected position, and she lost her position at the next election in 2017.
In 2020 the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, but Davis’s lawyers hold out hope that they may reconsider their position. Since their case was rejected the make up of the court has changed significantly with more conservative judges being appointed under the Trump administration.
OIP Staff
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