Ky clerk Kim Davis stands firm amid ridicule

She has been denounced and ridiculed, online and in print.

One website said that “bigotry is ugly and so is her sweater.” Wonkette headlined a story about her, “Dumb Kentucky Clerk Sues for Religious Freedom to Suck at her Job.”

And since the disclosure that she has been divorced three times and married four, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who claims she has acted on “God’s authority” in refusing to license gays to marry, has been denounced as a hypocrite — and worse — who has selectively applied the Bible.

Citing court records, U.S. News & World Report disclosed this week that Davis gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband, and that they were fathered by her third husband but adopted by her second. The Courier-Journal confirmed that account.

Davis, who has defied the Supreme Court, will learn her fate Thursday when she and her deputies appear before a federal judge who could fine her or throw her in jail.

Her protest has ignited a firestorm and stunned residents of Morehead, where until the controversy she was known as a friendly and efficient clerk who recorded liens and titled vehicles.

“She did a really good job and never mentioned religion,” said retired District Judge John Cox. “Then, all the sudden, wham! This fell out of the sky.”

Davis, who worked as a deputy clerk for 27 years under her mother before she was elected last year, has said she underwent a religious conversion four years ago after the death of her mother-in-law.

"I went to church to fulfill her dying wish,” she said in a statement published by her lawyers at the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel. “There, I heard a message of grace and forgiveness and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ."

Davis declined to be interviewed about her stance — or her previous lifestyle.

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel’s founder and chairman, has said what happened before her conversion is irrelevant because it “wiped the slate clean.”

Since then, some residents say, they noticed that she began to dress more conservatively, wearing long dresses and long hair required by Apostolic Pentecostal doctrine, which prohibits ornamental jewelry and colored makeup and requires modest dress for men and women, including dresses that are below the knee.

Davis also began offering a weekly Bible study for inmates at the Rowan County Detention Center, which is continuing, a jail official said Wednesday.

In interviews in downtown Morehead and on the campus of Morehead State University, local residents said they were surprised by the national attention to Davis’ protest — and they were divided over her policy.

Cox said her “baffling” decision to disobey “the law of the land” has put Rowan County in a bad light, and Jerry Martin, a physics and engineering student at the university, said he worries that “we are fulfilling the hillbilly stereotype.”

Morehead News Publisher Keith Kappes bemoaned in an editorial that the city is a victim of “guilt by geography” and has been “bombarded … with nasty comments” because of Davis’ protest.

Morehead State President Wayne D. Andrews was compelled to issue an official statement championing the university’s commitment to diversity and saying that “elected officials should obey the law and do their jobs.”

But Davis has supporters, like Gary Fultz, who, wearing a black and red NRA cap, stood inside Mitchell’s gun shop Wednesday decrying the Supreme Court and warning that same-sex marriage will destroy the American family.

“Know that there are people in this town and this city that do not agree with gay marriage,” he said. “It’s a simple matter of who is screaming the loudest.”

Rosemary Jones, a Baptist and retired secretary for the Rowan County Board of Education who lives near the courthouse, said she’s proud that Davis is standing up for her convictions.

“She’s a wonderful person — very, very knowledgeable on her job,” Jones said. “If you want to know something, go to Kim. She just does a super job and has for years and years.”

Davis’ pastor at Solid Rock Apostolic Church, the Rev. Daniel Carter, has declined to talk to reporters, and the church's phone was out of service Wednesday.

But Paul Semisch, the president of the Morehead Ministerial Association, said the controversy has divided pastors and churches, including First Christian Church, where he is an elder.

“It all depends on the way you understand what the Bible means, and what salvation means, and what God’s love means,” he said.

Davis, who turns 50 on Sept. 17, has said that while she intends to continue to serve the people of Rowan County, “I cannot violate my conscience.”

“Some people have said I should resign, but I have done my job well,” she said in her statement. “This year we are on track to generate a surplus for the county of 1.5 million dollars.”

Davis, whose annual salary is $80,000, said she has received death threats but harbors no ill will toward her enemies.

“I want to continue to perform my duties, but I also am requesting what our founders envisioned — that conscience and religious freedom would be protected,” she said. “I never sought to be in this position, and I would much rather not have been placed in this position."

Davis has lived nowhere else but Rowan County, and the clerk’s office has literally been a family business.

She went to work for her mother, Jean Bailey, as a deputy straight out of Rowan County High School, and eventually was chief deputy.

In a three-way Democratic primary last year, Davis won by 23 votes, then faced off against a Republican who campaigned against nepotism in the office, where her son Nathan now works as a deputy.

Davis touted the service of her mother, who was in office 37 years, and promised voters continuity.

“Jean Bailey is one of the most respected clerks in the state, and I’ve been blessed to watch and learn from her,” Davis told The Morehead News. She won the general election with 53 percent of the vote.

Davis was married for the first time in 1984, when she was 28, to Dwain Wallace, a store clerk, and they had two children. She divorced and was married again in 1996, to Joe Davis, then a deckhand, and they were divorced 12 years later.

She was wed a third time in 2008 at Sky Bridge to Thomas B. McIntyre Jr., with whom she had twins in 1994 while married to Joe Davis.

She and McIntyre separated after a year of marriage, and she later married Davis a second time, according to court records, which show Joe Davis adopted the twins but later had his rights to them terminated.

Kim and Joe Davis live on a 34-acre farm northeast of Morehead.

Davis conceded in her statement that she has led an imperfect life but said her beliefs are real.

“She made a lot of mistakes and she regrets those,” Staver said in an interview. “She made a 180-degree turnaround.”

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at (502) 582-7189 and reporter Mike Wynn at (502) 875-5136