A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a gay couple who sued former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis over her infamous 2015 refusal to grant them a marriage license because of their sexual orientation.
Davis, who was serving as Rowan County clerk at the time, was found guilty of violating the couple’s constitutional rights last year and also spent five days in the slammer in 2015 for his denials.
The former clerk refused to grant marriage licenses to two couples — based on his own personal belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman rather than a landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the US that same year — and both. the couple sued him.
A jury in Ashland awarded one of the couples, David Ermold and David Moore, $50,000 each on Wednesday, according to Davis’ attorney.
The second couple, James Yates and Will Smith, were not awarded damages Wednesday by US District Judge David Bunning.
Bunning is the same judge who sentenced Davis to prison in 2015 after holding him in contempt of court. He was released five days later after his staff issued his own license while removing his name from the documents.
Kim Davis was convicted of contempt of court in 2015 and spent five days in jail. EPA
The case attracted national media attention after Ermold and Moore showed up at Davis’ office asking for a marriage license with news cameras behind them. Davis refused, prompting Moore to ask under whose authority he had the authority to deny their right to marry.
“Under the power of God,” he answered.
The clerk — who was voted out of office in 2018 — was parodied on an episode of “Saturday Night Live” but was championed by conservatives who arrived in Kentucky to support him.
Last year, Bunning ruled that Davis “cannot use his own constitutional rights as a shield to infringe on the constitutional rights of others while performing his duties as an elected official.”
Davis was mocked in an episode of “SNL” but won the support of Christian conservatives as his refusal to gain national attention in 2015. REUTERS
Davis’ lawyers said they plan to appeal Wednesday’s decision and take the case to the Supreme Court, which in 2020 declined to review a previous appeal they filed.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
