Kentucky governor orders clerks' names removed from marriage licenses

Kentucky's new governor on Tuesday ordered county clerks' names stricken from state marriage license forms that were at the center of a controversy involving Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed after refusing to issue licenses to gay couples.

Gov. Matt Bevin said shortly after his election in November — only the second Republican elected governor of Kentucky after 1943 — that he would change the forms, which had drawn objections from Davis and some other clerks.

"To ensure that the sincerely held religious beliefs of all Kentuckians are honored, I took action to revise the clerk marriage license form," Bevin said in a statement.

It was unclear what effect Bevin's executive order would have on the case of Davis, who made Kentucky a focal point in the debate over gay marriage in the United States when she refused to issue any marriage licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court in June made gay marriage legal across the United States.

The jailing for five days in September of Davis, who cited her Apostolic Christian beliefs in refusing to issue the licenses, drew international attention and demonstrators.

Davis also briefly met Pope Francis in September in Washington during his visit to the United States.

Lawyers representing two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples challenged her action. U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Davis, 50, to issue the licenses and then jailed her after she refused.

Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the couples who sued Davis, said Bevin's action had "added to the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over marriage licenses in Kentucky" as clerk names are required by state law on the licenses.

Davis took steps to remove her name and office from the forms after she was released and a deputy clerk has issued licenses since she was jailed in early September.

Davis repeatedly urged then Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to remove clerk names from the form or provide other relief so she would not violate religious beliefs.

She has also appealed Bunning's orders to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Bunning and the appeals court have repeatedly denied her stays in the case.

Davis and her attorney could not immediately be reached to comment.

Beshear had said he had no authority to relieve county clerks of their statutory duties by executive order and that the state legislature could address the issue.

Reuters