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"Those names don't hurt me," Kim Davis tells ABC
The Kentucky clerk refuses to issue marriage license to same-sex couples
Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who’s refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, says she’s been called Hitler, a homophobe and a hypocrite.
“I have been called things and names that I didn’t even say when I was in the world” she told ABC in an exclusive interview set to air Tuesday. “Those names don’t hurt me.”
And in an excerpt from the interview, Davis tearfully said those names don’t define her.
“What probably hurts me the worst,” she said, “is when someone tells me that my God does not love me or that my God is not happy with me, that I am a hypocrite of a Christian.”
Earlier this month, Davis became a political lightning rod, lionized by supporters and slammed by critics, after a federal judge found her in contempt of court and sent her to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples from her office in Rowan County, Kentucky.
Davis has said issuing the licenses would violate her conscience and go against her religion.
The judge released her from jail on September 8, saying he was satisfied her deputies had fulfilled her office’s obligations to issue the licenses. But his order also said Davis cannot interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.
Since Davis returned to work, questions have loomed over whether licenses issued by the office are valid, with critics accusing her of trying to skirt the court’s order by changing the documents.
In a federal court filing last week, a deputy clerk in the office said Davis had removed her name, the name of the county or any reference to a clerk or deputy clerk from the licenses. Those changes, the court filing said, make the deputy clerk worry he’s issuing invalid licenses. Lawyers representing same-sex couples for the American Civil Liberty Union also argue the changes “call into question the validity of the marriage licenses issued” and “create an unconstitutional two-tier system of marriage licenses issued in Kentucky.”
Mat Staver, an attorney for Davis, has said she hasn’t interfered with the deputy clerk’s issuance of licenses or circumvented the court’s order.
CNN’s Joseph Netto contributed to this report.
