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BREAKING: Kim Davis rejects deal; is really going to jail

BREAKING: Kim Davis rejects deal; is really going to jail
A protester waives a rainbow flag outside the Carl D. Perkins Federal Building in Ashland, Ky., Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015.  Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has defied federal court orders to hand out marriage licenses, saying her religious beliefs don't let her endorse same-sex marriage. A judge has ordered her to appear Thursday. If she continues to refuse to follow the law, she could be hit with fines or jail time.
A protester waives a rainbow flag outside the Carl D. Perkins Federal Building in Ashland, Ky., Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has defied federal court orders to hand out marriage licenses, saying her religious beliefs don’t let her endorse same-sex marriage. A judge has ordered her to appear Thursday. If she continues to refuse to follow the law, she could be hit with fines or jail time. AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley

ASHLAND, Ky. — A defiant county clerk refused a judge’s compromise offer on gay marriage that could have kept her out of jail on Thursday, saying she can’t promise not to interfere as her deputy clerks follow the law.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning said he had no choice but to jail Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis for contempt after she insisted that her “conscience will not allow” her to follow federal court rulings on gay marriage.

“God’s moral law conflicts with my job duties,” Davis told the judge before a federal marshal escorted her out. “You can’t be separated from something that’s in your heart and in your soul.”

The judge later sought a resolution to keep Davis out of jail after all. He overruled an objection from her lawyer, who argued that her six deputy clerks cannot act against her authority. And he called each one before him to declare whether they intend to follow the law. All but the clerk’s son, Nathan Davis, promised to comply.

The judge said Nathan Davis’ position wouldn’t matter, and that his mother could go free as long as she promised not to interfere with issuing of marriage licenses to all couples. But Kim Davis rejected the offer, her attorneys later said.

With that, the hearing ended, and the saga was sure to continue Friday, as gay and lesbian couples vowed to return to the Rowan County clerk’s office yet again in hopes that the deputy clerks would keep their promises.

Bunning said it would set up a “slippery slope” to allow an individual’s ideas to supersede the courts’ authority.

“Her good faith belief is simply not a viable defense,” Bunning said. “I myself have genuinely held religious beliefs … but I took an oath.”

“Mrs. Davis took an oath,” he added. “Oaths mean things.”

Outside, hundreds of people chanted and screamed, “Love won! Love won!” as word of Davis’ jailing reached the dueling crowds.

Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, an organization that advocates in court for religious freedoms. Before she was led away, Davis explained that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June that legalized gay marriage nationwide conflicts with the vows she made when she became a born-again Christian.

“I promised to love Him with all my heart, mind and soul because I wanted to make heaven my home,” Davis said.

April Miller, who was denied a marriage license four times by Davis or her deputies, testified that she voted for Kim Davis and has no desire to change the clerk’s personal beliefs, but wants to be treated equally in the community where she lives. One of the deputy clerks told her to apply in a different county, she said, but “that’s kind of like saying we don’t want gays or lesbians here. We don’t think you are valuable.”

The judge later produced promises of compliance from five of the clerks.

“I don’t really want to, but I will comply with the law,” said one, Melissa Thompson. “I’m a preacher’s daughter and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” she added. “I don’t hate anybody … None of us do.”

Davis, an Apostolic Christian whose critics mock her for being on her fourth marriage, stopped issuing licenses to all couples after the Supreme Court ruling, and the courts consistently ruled against her since then. But many supporters have rallied around her, including Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal.

“People are calling the office all the time asking to send money,” she testified. “I myself have not solicited any money.”

Davis said she hopes the Legislature will change Kentucky laws to find some way for her to keep her job while following her conscience. But unless the governor convenes a costly special session, they won’t meet until January. “Hopefully our legislature will get something taken care of,” she told the judge.

Until then, the judge said, he has no alternative but to keep her behind bars.

“The legislative and executive branches do have the ability to make changes,” Bunning said. “It’s not this court’s job to make changes. I don’t write law.”

Davis served as her mother’s deputy in the clerk’s office for 27 years before she was elected as a Democrat to succeed her mother in November. As an elected official, she can be removed only if the Legislature impeaches her, which is unlikely in a deeply conservative state.

Former Republican President George W. Bush nominated David Bunning for a lifetime position as a federal judge in 2001 when he was just 35 years old, halfway through his father’s first term in the Senate. But Bunning has been anything but a sure thing for conservative causes, ruling against a partial-birth abortion ban and in favor of a Gay-Straight high school club.

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