Who Is Kim Davis? What to Know About the Former County Clerk
How Kim Davis Became Involved With A Supreme Court Case
Published
Getty
Kim's Spent Most of Her Life in Kentucky
Kim Davis has found herself at the center of some high-profile political situations ... one of which ended up reaffirming a monumental right of LGBTQ folks across the nation.
The former Kentucky county clerk was involved with a case that almost made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. We're going to take a look into Davis' background and see what happened with one of her appeals filed several years after the case involving her was decided.
Kim's Spent Most of Her Life in Kentucky
Davis was born in Morehead, Kentucky, and she's spent much of her life in Rowan County, Kentucky, where she formerly served as a county clerk.
Davis' mother served as Rowan County's county clerk for 37 years, and Kim worked for her mother for 27 years, according to CNN.
Kim has been married a total of four times. She remarried her second husband, whom she divorced in 2006, in 2009, according to Newsweek. She had two children during her first marriage, and she had two more kids out of wedlock.
Kim is a steadfast Christian -- she took up the faith in 2011 after her dying mother-in-law asked her to start attending church, reports NBC News.
She Spent Time in Jail in 2015
Davis first encountered controversy in 2015, when she refused to issue a marriage license to a gay couple, stating her religious beliefs prevented her from doing so ... despite the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage and made state bans unconstitutional earlier that year.
Davis was arrested for contempt of court for refusing to issue licenses months after Obergefell was decided, and she spent five days in jail. The couple in question sued Davis.
She was subsequently ordered to pay just over $360,000 in legal fees and damages to the couple, according to The Guardian.
Davis' Appeal Was Turned Down by the U.S. Supreme Court
Davis appealed a loss to the couple ... and lost her appeal to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March this year. She then petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the case, NBC News reports. She claimed the Obergefell decision is "legal fiction," according to ABC News.
Davis challenged the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, but the appeal was shot down. The court didn't comment. The court's denial of Davis' appeal doesn't set any legal precedent.
