EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis : 'This is a fight worth fighting'
UPDATE: A federal judge has ordered a defiant Kentucky clerk to jail after she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning told Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis she would be jailed until she complied with his order to issue the licenses. Davis said "thank you" before she was led out of the courtroom by a U.S. marshal. She was not in handcuffs.
I'm very steadfast in what I believe. I don't leave my conscience and my Christian soul out in my vehicle and come in here and pretend to be something I'm not. It's easy to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?
Bunning also warned deputy clerks around the state that they could suffer the same fate should they refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Davis has refused to issue marriages licenses for two months since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. She argues that her Christian faith should exempt her from signing the licenses.
Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver, who is representing Davis, called the ruling "outrageous."
"If this country has come to this point where a judge jails someone like Kim Davis for their religious convictions – then we have lost our religious liberty," Staver told me.
He said Davis will be fingerprinted and photographed "just like a criminal."
"This cannot be tolerated," he said. "This is ultimately going to spark a huge debate around the country. This is not the kind of country – this is not the America that our founders envisioned."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Kim Davis could become the first Christian in America jailed as a result of the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage.
"I've weighed the cost and I'm prepared to go to jail, I sure am," Mrs. Davis told me in an exclusive interview. "This has never been a gay or lesbian issue for me. This is about upholding the word of God."
"This is a heaven or hell issue for me and for every other Christian that believes," she said. "This is a fight worth fighting."
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Davis is the clerk of Rowan County, Ky. – a small patch of earth in the northeastern part of the state. She was elected last November – taking the place of her mother, who held the position for nearly 40 years.
It's fair to say that issuing marriage licenses was something of a family business – until the day the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
Davis is a devout Apostolic Christian, and she knew that should gay marriage become legal, she could not and would not sign her name on a same-sex marriage certificate.