MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) - A Kentucky clerk says she is not going to interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but she says she is not authorizing them and questions whether they are valid.
Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis read from a hand-written statement Monday morning, her first day back in the office after a stint in jail for five days for defying a federal judge. She choked up as she was speaking, saying she was torn between obeying her God and following the judge's orders.
A spokeswoman for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said he has reviewed marriage licenses issued in Rowan County and believes they're valid, despite arguments from Davis saying they were granted without her authority.
Spokeswoman Allison Gardner Martin said Monday that Conway hadn't been asked to issue a formal opinion on the validity of the licenses, but he believes that those issued while clerk Kim Davis was in jail and one issued so far since her return to work have been valid.
The one that was issued since Davis' return to work came Monday as a same-sex couple received their license.
The couple received their marriage license over the objections of Davis. As the lesbian couple squeezed through the mass of reporters, Davis' supporters heckled them from the back of the room.
Davis, an Apostolic Christian, stopped issuing licenses after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, in defiance of a series of court orders.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning held her in contempt and ordered her to jail. In her absence, her deputies have issued at least seven licenses to gay couples.
(Copyright 2015 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
