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 U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis released on
Tuesday after six days in jail, warning her not to interfere with
her deputy clerks who are issuing the licenses, or face further
sanctions.
Bunning had found Davis, clerk for Rowan County in eastern Kentucky,
in contempt after she stopped issuing licenses to any couples,
citing her belief as an Apostolic Christian that a marriage can only
be between a man and a woman.
The issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky
and other states has become the latest focal point in the
long-running debate over gay marriage in the United States.
Ante Pavkovic, one of the people who helped organize pro-Davis
rallies outside the Grayson, Kentucky, detention center where Davis
was jailed, lectured the deputy clerks not to violate their oaths of
office. He criticized Bunning and the U.S. Supreme Court justices
who backed gay marriage.
 "Do not join them in this any further, and if you can't do that,
then you should just quit," Pavkovic, 49, of North Carolina, said,
standing in the clerk's office in Morehead, Kentucky.
He waved a sign in the faces of the deputy clerks that read, "Fire
the cowardly clerks that are lawbreakers." He was asked to leave by
a deputy sheriff.
Davis will return to her $80,000-a-year job on Monday after spending
time with family, a spokeswoman for her attorney said. However, her
lawyer, Mat Staver, founder of Christian religious advocacy group
Liberty Counsel, said on Tuesday her position had not changed,
raising the possibility she could return to jail if she moves to
block the issuance of licenses.
Asked on Wednesday if Davis would fire the deputies or take any
other action if they issued licenses, Liberty Counsel attorney Harry
Mihet did not address the question.
He said Davis loved her deputies, adding they were forced by
judicial threats to issue the licenses. He reiterated that she was
looking for a solution that did not violate the law or the
consciences of the deputies.
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Raising the stakes further, deputy clerk Brian Mason said on
Wednesday he would continue issuing marriage licenses after Davis
returns, even if she tells him not to. "I'm still going to issue
licenses," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in late June legalizing it in
all 50 states, but a small number of elected clerks and lower-level
judges have voiced opposition on religious grounds.
At the Rowan County clerk's office on Wednesday, the first of seven
gay couples to obtain marriage licenses since Friday returned to
have the documents legally filed. Ten licenses in all have been
issued.
"The ante has been upped at this point," Nashia Fife,
secretary-elect of the Rowan County Rights Coalition, which supports
the rights of gay couples to get marriage licenses, said of
Bunning's warning to Davis not to interfere.
Staver, Davis' lawyer, said his client still wants an accommodation
to remove her name and her authority from the marriage certificates.
Bunning secured assurances from five of the six deputy clerks that
they would comply with the court order and issue licenses to all
legally eligible couples. Only Davis' son Nathan refused, but he was
not jailed.
(Reporting by Steve Bittenbender; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by
Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)
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