Gay couple denied marriage license in Kentucky awarded $100K

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a Kentucky couple who sued former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis after she refused to grant them a marriage license.

David Ermold and David Moore were each awarded $50,000 Wednesday in a 2015 case brought against Davis, who spent five days in jail the same year for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis had argued that granting the marriage licenses would violate “God’s definition of marriage” as well as her religious beliefs as a Christian.

She was released after her staff agreed to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on her behalf. Same-sex couples won the right to marry in 2015 following the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Michael Gartland, an attorney for Ermold and Moore, told The Hill that “the plaintiffs and their counsel could not be more pleased with the jury’s verdict” in their case against Davis. 

A second couple who sued Davis were awarded no damages Wednesday, according to lawyers for Davis. The plaintiffs in that case, James Yates and Will Smith, had asked for $300,000 in damages.

Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which represented Davis in both cases, said in a news release Wednesday that the group looks “forward to appealing this decision.”

“We will argue religious accommodation under the First Amendment, and other state and federal laws,” Staver said. “We will also argue that Obergefell v. Hodges was wrongly decided and should be overturned. Yesterday’s jury verdict has paved the way for this case to go [to] the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The high court declined to hear an appeal from Davis in 2020. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for himself and Justice Samuel Alito, wrote at the time that while he agreed with the decision, the case served as a “stark reminder of the consequences” of the court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Davis, a Republican, lost her bid for reelection in 2018.