Clickbait Title: “Kim Davis Ordered To Pay Couple $260,084.70 Over Refusal To Issue Same-Sex Marriage License”
Kim Davis, former county clerk in Kentucky, was ordered to pay a couple she denied a marriage license over $260,000 according to a US district court ruling. The couple in question – David Ermold and David Moore – was awarded $246,026.40 in attorney fees and $14,058.30 for expenses, as well as a $100,000 in damages from a jury ruling in September, totaling the sum of $260,084.70.
Judge David L. Bunning wrote that the decision marked the end of the couple’s “long and winding road” of litigation. In 2015, Davis, who worked at Rowan County at the time, refused to issue a license based on her religious beliefs, despite a Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriages were legal.
Ermold and Moore, who had been in a relationship for 17 years and were Rowan County residents for 10 years, sought a marriage license with Davis on July 6, 2015, but were denied. Consequently, they filed a lawsuit against Davis on July 10.
Liberty Counsel, a legal group in Florida representing Davis, argued that the fees and expenses requested by the couple were excessive, and stated in an announcement Tuesday that they would be asking the court to reverse the jury’s verdict. They asserted that Davis does not deserve to pay these damages because she was “entitled to a religious accommodation from issuing marriage licenses” which conflicted with her religious values.
Davis had become the symbol of religious opposition to same-sex marriage prior to her court decision, and even spent five nights in jail in 2015 due to being found guilty of defying a federal order that demanded licenses be issued to same-sex couples. Now, the Rowan County Clerk’s Office has been carrying out the federal court order and issuing same-sex marriage licenses since September 2015; the same month Ermold and Moore were married.
