Kim Davis

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that Davis's imprisonment was part of the "criminalization of Christianity", while Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin compared Davis's refusal to obey the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to Alabama Governor George Wallace's "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" in 1963.

Kimberly Jean Davis (née Bailey; born September 17, 1965) is an American former county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, who gained international attention in August 2015 when she defied a U.S. federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Kim Davis was born on September 17, 1965, in Morehead, Kentucky.

By 1991, she was serving as chief deputy clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, reporting to her mother, Rowan County Clerk Jean W. Bailey.

Davis's 2011 compensation was US$51812 2011 in wages with an additional US$11301 2011 in overtime and other compensation.

She earned more than other chief deputies in the county, and some county employees and residents complained to the county's governing body, the Fiscal Court, that the clerk's staff's wages were too high, with total compensation for five employees being about $198,000.

The Fiscal Court then voted to cut the 2012 budget for wages from $300,000 to $200,000.

Davis was elected Rowan County Clerk in 2014.

The following year, the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges, and all county clerks in Kentucky were ordered to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Citing personal religious objections to same-sex marriage, Davis began denying marriage licenses to all couples to avoid issuing them to same-sex couples.

A lawsuit, Miller v. Davis, was filed, and Davis was ordered by the U.S. District Court to start issuing marriage licenses.

She appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the application to appeal was denied.

Davis continued to defy the court order by refusing to issue marriage licenses "under God's authority"; she was ultimately jailed for contempt of court.

Davis was released after five days in jail under the condition that she not interfere with the efforts of her deputy clerks, who had begun issuing marriage licenses to all couples in her absence.

Davis then modified the Kentucky marriage licenses used in her office so that they no longer mentioned her name.

Davis's actions drew strong and mixed reactions from prominent politicians, legal experts, and religious leaders.

Attorney and author Roberta A. Kaplan described Davis as "the clearest example of someone who wants to use a religious liberty argument to discriminate", while law professor Eugene Volokh maintained that an employer must try to accommodate religious employees' beliefs.

After her mother announced she would not run for re-election in 2014, Davis filed as a Democratic candidate for county clerk.

At a candidates' forum, Davis stated she felt she was best qualified for the position because of her 26 years of experience in the clerk's office.

Davis narrowly won the Democratic primary election, defeating Elwood Caudill Jr., a deputy clerk in the Rowan County property valuation administrator's office, by 23 votes and advancing to the general election against Republican John Cox.

Davis won the election, with Cox subsequently alleging that nepotism was to blame for his loss.

After winning the race, Davis told The Morehead News, "My words can never express the appreciation but I promise to each and every one that I will be the very best working clerk that I can be and will be a good steward of their tax dollars and follow the statutes of this office to the letter."

Davis took the oath of office as the county clerk of Rowan County on January 5, 2015, beginning a four-year term slated to end on January 7, 2019.

As clerk in 2015, Davis received an annual salary of US$80000 2015.

On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Fourteen counties in three Southern states continued to deny marriage licenses for same-sex marriage.

The Alabama Supreme Court allowed the probate judges of ten counties in Alabama to deny such marriage licenses, the clerk of one Texas county chose to resign rather than issue such licenses, and the clerks of two counties in Kentucky were not issuing licenses due to paperwork delays.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear ordered all Kentucky county clerks to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately.

Davis contacted Beshear, asking for an executive order to protect clerks who have moral objections against personally issuing such marriage licenses, as Kentucky law requires county clerks to issue marriage licenses in their names.

She began turning away gay couples from her county office who were seeking marriage licenses.

David Ermold and David Moore, a same-sex couple from Morehead, Kentucky and alumni of Morehead State University, released video footage on July 7, 2015, of Davis refusing to issue them a marriage license and requesting that they turn off their camera.

The video went viral overnight.

The Family Foundation of Kentucky, a local political organization, held a protest rally against the ruling at the State Capitol in Frankfort on August 22, 2015, attended by several thousand people.

The clerks of the two other Kentucky counties declined to speak to the rally crowd, but Davis spoke briefly, saying, "I need your prayers ... to continue to stand firm in what we believe."

At a competing event several blocks away organized by the Fairness Campaign of Louisville, attendees celebrated the Supreme Court's decision and called upon government officials to uphold the law.

Rather than issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Davis began denying marriage licenses to all couples.

Six couples who were denied marriage licenses from Davis sued her in her official capacity as county clerk.

Four couples were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky and two couples each had separate legal representation.

The four couples represented by the ACLU, two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples, filed the first lawsuit against Davis (Miller v. Davis) on July 2, 2015.

A few weeks after her release from jail, Davis met with Pope Francis in Washington, D.C. She was defeated by Democratic challenger Elwood Caudill Jr. in the November 6, 2018, election and vacated the office on January 7, 2019.