Kentucky clerk continues to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples

A Kentucky clerk is holding steadfast in her refusal to issue marriage licenses in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis must resume issuing marriage licenses in her county despite her religious objections to same-sex unions, The Lexington Herald-Leader reports. But Davis had already appealed the decision by Thursday in what The New York Times is calling “the nation’s first legal test” of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Needless to say, many of the gay and straight couples in her county that want to get married are not happy.

“People are cruel, and this is wrong,” David Ermold told the Times. Word of Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses spread in large part thanks to a YouTube video posted by Ermold and his would-be husband, David Moore, back in July.

But these couples say that they’re not giving up.

“We’re going to keep coming back,” Karen Roberts told The Associated Press after she and her partner of 11 years, April Miller, were refused a marriage license. “We’re going to fight this to the very end.”

Davis’ actions have received support from the Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit public interest law firm that—oh, wait. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Liberty Counsel as an “anti-LGBT hate group.” I got nothing.

Related coverage:

• Three cases where religious exemption wasn’t enough to deny people their rights