Here's What Kim Davis' Emails Reveal
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Kentucky clerk Kim Davis went to jail last month after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Rowan County, and emails sent and received by her, which the Associated Press recently obtained, shed some light on her state of mind in the weeks leading up to her arrest.
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Before a federal judge ordered Davis' arrest, finding her in contempt of court for defying the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, the government official referred to herself as a "soldier for Christ" in one email. In the face of public scrutiny over her inaction, Davis maintained that her religious beliefs superseded her responsibilities as a public servant. The same sentiment was reflected in the emails, which the AP obtained after filing a request under Kentucky's open records law.
"The battle has just begun," Davis wrote to one supporter just hours after four couples filed a lawsuit against her in July.
On July 2, she exclaimed that "[i]t has truly been a firestorm here and the days are pretty much a blur, but I am confident that God is in control of all of this!!"
"I desire your prayers," she added. "I will need strength that only God can supply and I need a backbone like a saw log!!"
The emails reinforce the idea that Davis was motivated by a conviction that her role as the Rowan County clerk went beyond the issuing of marriage licenses. Indeed, she seemed to feel that she was serving a higher purpose by denying same-sex couples their constitutional right to marriage. As opponents gathered at the clerk's office in protest, Davis expressed concern over the growing unrest, and another supporter, Willie Ramsey, sent her a message asking if she would be sufficiently protected "from the wicked threatening homosexual mob and their supporters."
"They are going to try and make a whipping post out of me!!" Davis replied. "I know it, but God is still alive and on the throne!!! He IS in control and knows exactly where I am!!"
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Ramsey followed up with the clerk in late August, offering to block the courthouse doors if law enforcement attempted to detain her.
She answered: "September 1 will be the day to prepare for, if the Lord doesn't return before then. I have weighed the cost, and will stay the course."
Davis did in fact "stay the course," but despite the apparent efforts to intervene in the arrest, she was taken into custody on September 3 and spent five days in jail, as ordered by a federal judge. The emails support what many had suspected about Davis' motive, demonstrating that her defiance was the product of deeply held convictions based in her Apostolic Christian faith.
Since her release, Davis has been instructed not to withhold marriage licenses from same-sex couples in Rowan County. But because she's replaced her title with a statement declaring that "the licenses were being issued under a federal court order," the ACLU has called into question the validity of the marriage licenses, "and the legal battle wears on."
