OWENSBORO, Ky. — A Kentucky county clerk may have again defied a federal judge’s order regarding gay-marriage licenses by altering license forms to remove her name, an attorney who represents one of the clerk’s employees told the judge Friday in a court filing.

In a separate filing Friday, attorneys for the gay couples who sued Davis appear to agree.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis spent five days in jail for refusing to obey a federal judge’s ruling that she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized gay marriage nationwide. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, believes same-sex marriage is a sin and cited “God’s authority” in refusing to obey the ruling.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning released Davis from jail on the condition that she not interfere with her employees as they issue marriage licenses. When she returned to work, Davis altered the marriage forms by removing her name, making deputy clerk Brian Mason initial the form instead of sign it, and then requiring the form to be notarized.

Hughes said it was “really bizarre” that Davis would alter the forms.

“Unless she’s got a really good reason, and I’ll certainly be patient and wait to hear it, the only inference I personally can draw from it is she is trying to circumvent the court’s order,” he said.

Bunning appointed attorneys for each of Davis’ deputy clerks and asked them to file status reports every two weeks. The reports are not due until Tuesday, but Hughes filed his on Friday saying Davis’ “changes were made in some attempt to circumvent the court’s orders and may have raised to the level of interference against the court’s orders.”

Also Friday, the attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union said in a court filing that the changes on the form require Mason to issue the licenses “in his capacity as a ‘notary public’ rather than a deputy clerk of the Rowan County Clerk’s Office,” changes that “do not comply” with the court’s order to not interfere with her employees who issue the licenses.


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