'Traditional Marriage Parade' divides rural Iowa town

Photo by Sandy Millar, Unsplash

A Baptist pastor of small-town Ottumwa in Iowa challenged the fairness of a city council proclamation to celebrate Pride month while other groups like veterans went unnoticed, Joe Barrett of The Wall Street Journal reported.

When the council members explained they only passed resolutions of this nature that were brought to their attention, Pastor Travis Decker decided to create his own “Traditional Marriage Parade” – and he wanted to get a proclamation from the city for it.

This request led to “weeks of emotional public meetings, social-media battles and questions about whether the council should have proclamations at all,” Barrett wrote. 

Pastor Chris Childs from Grace Methodist Church noted that the conflict highlights the fraught political environment that has divided America everywhere.

And the result? The city council decided that no one gets anything. A new policy was created to prevent controversial proclamations from being passed in the future.

“Pride or traditional marriage proclamations probably won’t make the cut,” council member Cara Galloway told the Wall Street Journal.

Opinion: People are getting married less often and having more children outside of marriage -- especially in rural areas

Rates for unmarried women and children out of
marriage are increasing. (photo by Thiago Cerqueira)

In an effort to prioritize "spending and infrastructure for communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” new guidelines from the Transportation Department have been issued by the Trump administration, according to a Washington Post opinion piece by Shelley Clark, a professor of sociology at McGill University, and Matthew Brooks, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University. 

Clark and Brooks said that the new guidelines would seem to be aimed toward Trump supporters in rural areas including “large traditional families.” However, their research shows that the appeal of having a large traditional family is not as popular as it once was. 

“Between 1988 and 2018, the proportion of rural women who were married fell from 55% to 33%… By 2018, rural women were more likely than urban women to be in an unmarried, cohabiting partnership (19% vs. 14%),” according to Clark and Brooks. They also said that the rates for women who have never been married has increased for both rural and urban women.

With the number of unmarried and divorced women rising, Clark and Brooks have tracked that the number of children born outside of marriage has also been on the rise. That is occurring at a time when the overall average number of children being born per woman has declined; and the number of rural children living with married parents has declined at twice the rate of urban children.

While Clark and Brooks said that rural transportation would be very beneficial due to the need to “travel greater distances to access necessities,” their research indicated “that using marriage and family size as the criteria for transportation funding is likely to disadvantage rural regions.”

“These rapid transformations in both marriage and non-marital childbearing help explain why many rural residents and politicians are inclined to think the traditional family is under threat,” according to Clark and Brooks. They also suggested that policies should be based on data about needs rather than “stereotypes about small-town family life.”

Finding love in rural places can be hard; 'Farmer Wants A Wife' show helps four of them, and there are other options

Landon Heaton on his Oklahoma farm
(Photo by Xcaret Nuñez, Harvest Radio)

Bacon and eggs, high socks and baseball, or narwhals and unicorns; the world abounds with delightful twosomes. But for humans, finding a fantastic partner can be tricky, and if you're a rancher like Landon Heaton, making things OK at the corral can take up most of your time, and dating doesn't make the chore list.

"Heaton lives alone on his 700-acre ranch near a small town called Coyle, about an hour outside of Oklahoma City," reports Xcaret Nuñez of Harvest Public Media. "The 35-year-old said he loves caring for his animals, watching his dogs roam free and cattle thrive. But his devotion to working on the ranch took priority in his life, and he lost sight of finding a girlfriend." Heaton told Nuñez, "Why am I gonna go out to the bars when I gotta wake up at six in the morning and go check calves? That's kind of the pattern I found myself in. Relationships went away, and I was here to take care of animals and farm."

"Out of the blue, Heaton got an Instagram message from a Fox producer asking him to be a part of a reality dating show, "Farmer Wants A Wife," Nuñez reports. "At first, he thought it was a spam message — he had never even watched reality TV before and was hesitant to join. But after saying no '150 times,' Heaton finally agreed. . . . Heaton is one of four farmers ... set up with a group of single women, then shows them live on the farm. For Heaton, who loves his life ranching and farming, the show made him realize the value of finding someone special."

Farming is pretty solitary work, so most marriage-eligible farmers won't meet a potential spouse on the job. And younger people leaving rural areas, which "naturally shrinks the dating pool," Nuñez notes. "Rural farming-dependent counties, like those across the Midwest and Great Plains region, have lost about 40% of young adults between 20-29 years old each decade since the 1950s, said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer and sociologist at the University of New Hampshire."

Although farmers can't count on Fox productions to find them possible matches, other options exist. "Dating sites like FarmersOnly aim to make finding love a little easier for people living in rural areas. The niche online dating site connects farmers, ranchers and rural people, has attracted over 10 million members since it launched in 2005," Nuñez reports. "Despite the site's name, Michael Gober, the company's marketing manager, said FarmersOnly is meant to help people with similar small-town backgrounds and values find each other more easily. . . . Other dating apps like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble can also help broaden the dating scene for small-town folks, but driving long distances might be necessary." Gober told her, "They want somebody who is accepting of their lifestyle, who's accepting of their work ethic, and their work-life balance and wants to make a life together in rural America."

In honor of Valentine's Day: relationship tips for farmers

If you're the punning type, you might also download
these farming valentines from Farmer's Weekly. 

In honor of Valentine's Day, here's a trio of items on romance and marriage on the farm from Successful Farming Family Editor Lisa Foust Prater.

Gary Chapman's popular book "The 5 Love Languages" posits that people tend to express their love for others in five different ways, and that learning your and your partner's love languages can pave the way for greater harmony, Prater reports. She goes over the five love languages—acts of service, gifts, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation—what they look like, and how farming couples can best speak to each other in their partner's love language.

In addition to learning your partner's love language, Prater reports, farming couples should learn five broad skills to build a stronger marriage: learn to navigate work conflicts, make it a point to connect with each other, look for the positive in trying situations, learn to talk about money, and fight fair. 

Prater's advice is drawn from the Marriage Matters publication series, a collection of articles from university Extension offices that aims to help couples deal with common relationship issues. (The original link in the article leads to a jumping-off page with mostly dead links, but one of those links, from the University of Georgia, has an excellent, still-working roundup of relevant articles.)

Finally, Prater has a roundup of readers' submissions sharing the most romantic thing their farming partner has ever done. One farmer, for example, brought his wife a cold drink and lunch to the hayfield just to give her a hug and tell her he was proud of all the hard work she was doing. Another farmer cleans his wife's tractor windows every morning during harvest. And one creative farmer celebrated his first Valentine's Day with his wife by hanging a hand-made heart made of baling wire and red silk roses on the side of the barn. Now that's romance!

Attempted Vatican 'coup' rooted in accuser's setup of pope's meeting with clerk who refused to issue same-sex licenses

Pope Francis and County Clerk Kim Davis (Images from CNN)

For an archbishop whose accusations are splitting the Roman Catholic Church, his unhealable breach with Pope Francis began when he arranged for the pope to meet the rural county clerk who had gone to jail for contempt of court after she refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, reports Jason Horowitz of The New York Times.

"An abuse survivor with whom Francis has spoken at length said the pope recently told him" that Archbishop Carlo Viganò, then the papal nuncio (ambassador) to the U.S. "nearly sabotaged the visit" of the pope in 2015 by arranging a meet-and-greet with Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, the Times reports. Davis said Francis told her, "Thank you for your courage." But the Vatican said later that the meeting shouldn't be considered an expression of support for her stand. Davis, a former Democrat, is running for re-election this fall as a Republican.

Abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz quoted Pope Francis as saying of Davis and Viganò, “I didn’t know who that woman was, and he snuck her in to say hello to me — and of course they made a whole publicity out of it. And I was horrified, and I fired that nuncio.” Actually, as CNN reports, "Two years later, Francis quietly accepted Viganò's resignation. . . . During his trip to the United States, the pope had tried to stay above the country's culture wars. Viganò foisted Francis right into the fray."

Viganò (Pool photo by Rex Arbogast)

Last week Viganò wrote a 7,000-word letter that called for the pope's resignation, "accusing him of covering up sexual abuse and giving comfort to a ' homosexual current' in the Vatican," Horowitz notes. "The letter exposed deep ideological clashes, with conservatives taking up arms against Francis’ inclusive vision of a church that is less focused on divisive issues like abortion and homosexuality. But Archbishop Viganò — who himself has been accused of hindering a sexual misconduct investigation in Minnesota — also seems to be settling old scores. . . . Known for his short temper and ambition, Archbishop Viganò has clashed with superiors who stunted his ascent in the church and has played a key role in some of the most stunning Vatican scandals of recent times."

Francis said, "I will not say a single word about this. I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have the sufficient journalistic ability to make your conclusions. It's an act of trust." CNN Religion Editor Burke writes, "While journalists dig for the truth, and the pope keeps silent, Vigano's letter has emerged as a sort of Rorschach test for Catholics: Many conservative Catholics say the pope must go. Liberal Catholics accuse the archbishop of launching a coup d'etat against his boss."

UPDATE, Sept. 2: Viganò is contradicting the pope's account of the Washington meeting, saying "The pope knew very well who Davis was, and he and his close collaborators had approved the private audience." At the meeting, Viganò wrote, Francis "embraced her affectionately, thanked her for her courage and invited her to persevere."

In many rural areas, dating gets tricky, but apps can help

Dating can be complicated for anyone, but it can be much more daunting if you live in a rural area. So many young people leave their rural hometowns for city life, that pickings can be slim, Rachael Vasquez reports for Wisconsin Public Radio. That means it's hard to meet strangers or go on a date without kicking up the town gossip mill. The other alternative? Being willing to drive long distances to the closest city to date.

Kris Evans, who lives in rural Wisconsin, joked about how hard it was for country folks to find a date without driving for hours: "I kind of laughingly call it 'city privilege,'" he told Vasquez.

But the proliferation of dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, and Farmers Only has helped rural people meet potential dates more easily than previous generations, even though they still sometimes find themselves driving to nearby cities to make it work, Vasquez reports.

Catalina Toma of the University of Wisconsin, who studies relationships and online dating, told Vasquez there can be benefits to a smaller dating pool: "When you have fewer people to choose from, you might be more committed to them and more willing to give your all to that relationship and more willing to work on it."

Poor children growing up in rural areas are more likely to marry young

A new study says that where you grow up has a big impact on when you're likely to marry. The findings were part of a larger study of income tax records by Stanford University economist Raj Chetty and Harvard University economist Nathaniel Hendren. They studied how growing up in different counties affected poor children. "In general, the longer a child spends growing up in a rural community, the more likely he or she is to be married at age 26. Poor children who grow up in nine out of ten rural counties will marry at rates above the national average at age 26," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder. The study also found that children who grow up in rural areas are more likely to make a higher income than average at the age of 26.

Daily Yonder graphic

Both future income and marriage rates are partially determined by what Chetty and Hendren called "neighborhood effects", which means the general characteristics of neighborhoods that can influence children for better or worse. Rural areas tend to be less segregated, have greater community involvement from churches and civic organizations, lower crime rates, higher voting rates, and better schools. Rural young people are especially more likely to marry young in communities with more two-parent families and higher church attendance. There are political differences between rural and urban counties as well. "Clinton won the counties with neighborhood effects that result in lower than average marriage rates, 59% to 36%. Trump won the half of the country living in communities where children from poor families are more likely to marry by 56% to 37%," Bishop reports.

But the rural areas that promote earlier marriage and better income tend to be only incubators because there are far fewer high-earning jobs available. In other words, when those rural children grow up, they're likely to need to take their spouse and move to a more urban area that has more jobs available. Chetty and Hendren say they hope families will consider moving their children to rural areas to increase opportunity. "And governments and nonprofits could make investments in communities that would enhance those neighborhood effects that have been shown to be so beneficial, such as reducing segregation and increasing social capital," Bishop writes.

Some states allow teens to marry, but not to get a divorce or seek help for domestic violence

In New Hampshire, girls as young as 13 can get married, if they have parental consent and a judge’s approval, Rebecca Beitsch reports for Stateline. In 22 other states, the minimum age to marry is 17 or younger. West Virginia tops the nation in highest rate of teen marriage among children ages 15-17, at 7.1 per every 1,000 people. Texas is second at 6.9. Nearly 60,000 15- to 17-year-old Texans, five out of every 1,000, married in 2014. (Stateline map: Rate of teen marriage by state; for an interactive version click here)

While Stateline doesn't account for rural-urban disparities among teen marriage, Beitsch notes that it is more common in the South, Southwest and West, regions with large rural areas.

Also, a 2015 report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy using data from 2010, the most recent year data was available at the time, found that for girls 15-19, the rural teen birth rate was one-third higher than in the rest of the country.

For teens, getting out of a marriage, especially an abusive one, can be difficult, Beitsch writes. "In some states, people under 18 are not permitted to get divorced. Most domestic-violence shelters won’t accept people under 18. And because they are legally still children, those who try to escape a marriage may be returned by social services to the parents who approved the marriage in the first place."

New Hampshire legislators recently shot down a proposal to raise the minimum age to 18, Beitsch writes. Rep. David Bates, a Republican who voted against the bill, said, “It’s not that there’s a bunch of screwball legislators wanting 13-year-olds to get married. I don’t think there’s any justifiable rationale to absolutely prohibit someone in those situations from getting that judicial waiver.”

Nearly 1/3 of rural non-citizen immigrants are poor

Poverty levels (Carsey graphic)

"Economic stability is out of reach for many rural immigrants, particularly those without U.S. citizenship," says a study by the University of New Hampshire's Carsey School of Public Policy. The study, which used 2010-14 data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, found that the poverty rate among rural non-citizen immigrants is 31.6 percent, compared to 13.7 percent for rural immigrants who are citizens.

Overall, 15.6 percent of rural immigrants are defined as "working poor," meaning they have a job but don’t earn enough to pull their household income above the federally defined poverty level, Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. The number for native-born rural residents is 8 percent. Among full-time workers, 13.5 percent of rural immigrants are considered working poor, compared to 6.1 percent of native-born residents.

Researchers found that 39.4 percent of rural non-citizen immigrants have less than a high-school education, compared to 15 percent of the rural native-born population. About 19 percent of immigrants have at least some college and 18 percent a bachelor's degree or higher.

Poverty levels by immigration status

Most immigrants, 79.3 percent, are of working age (18-65). Only 9.1 percent are under 18, and 11.6 percent are 65 or older. A higher percentage of rural immigrants are married than native-born citizens, 60.1 percent to 53.5 percent, and 35.2 percent of rural immigrants have children under 18, compared to 23 percent of native-born residents. Marema notes, "That’s a switch for rural America, which overall has a higher percentage of children and retirees than urban areas do."

States with high marriage rates are more prosperous, says study by conservative groups

States with higher rates of marriage are more likely to have stronger economic growth, economic mobility and mean family income and less child poverty and violent crime, says the report "Strong Families, Prosperous States," by conservative groups American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies.

"When we compare states in the top quintile of married-parent families with those in the bottom quintile, we find that being in the top quintile is associated with a $1,451 higher per capita GDP, 10.5 percent greater upward income mobility for children from lower-income families, a 13.2 percent decline in the child poverty rate and a $3,654 higher median family income," states the American Enterprise Institute. The violent crime rate also decreases from 563 violent crimes per every 100,000 residents for states in the bottom quintile to 343 for every 100,000 residents for states in the top quintile. (The highest changes in the rate of married adults from 1977 to 2013 was in largely rural states, led by Kentucky, Iowa, West Virginia, Vermont and Wisconsin)

The percent of married adults has dropped in every state since the 1970s, states the report. "Less-educated Americans have been hit especially hard by the retreat from marriage in part because structural changes in the economy have lessened the economic security of working-class and poor men. Their wages are lower than they were in the 1970s, and since that time, their economic fortunes have declined relative to those of the women in their lives. These changes have rendered many men in poor and working-class communities less 'marriageable,' both in their own eyes and in the eyes of potential partners. By contrast, college-educated Americans—who benefit from more stable employment, higher incomes and more financial assets, all stabilizing factors in marriage and family life—have seen their divorce risk fall markedly since the 1980s and enjoy comparatively high levels of marital and family stability."

"The extent of the decline of marriage also varies by race," states the report. "African Americans have been buffeted by an ongoing legacy of racial discrimination and comparatively high levels of segregation, both of which strain marriages and families. Marriage patterns among Latinos are closer to the national average, though Latinos have somewhat higher rates of nonmarital childbearing and single parenthood than average. These economic and racial realities have left poor, working-class and minority families particularly vulnerable to the nation’s retreat from marriage."

Americans who have no religious affiliation or only rarely attend religious services are less likely to get married and more likely to get divorced if they do marry, states the report. "Likewise, Americans who adopt a more individualistic (and less familistic) ethos are less likely to form and maintain a stable, married family. We know, for example, that women who are more accepting of single parenthood as adolescents are more likely to have a child outside of wedlock and that Americans with a more progressive outlook are markedly less likely to be married." (States with the lowest percentage of children with married parents are West Virginia, Rhode Island, Nevada, Indiana and Georgia)

Ky. clerk not sued for withholding marriage licenses now gives them only to opposite-sex couples

One of the Kentucky county clerks who stopped issuing marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage but didn't get sued has resumed issuing licenses, but only to opposite-sex couples.

Casey County Clerk Casey Davis told Larry Rowell of the Casey County News that he issued a marriage license to an opposite sex couple on Sept. 30.

"A Separate Baptist preacher, Davis said publicly numerous times after the ruling that based on his religious convictions that marriage is between a man and a woman, it precluded him from issuing a license to a same sex couple," writes Rowell, himself a Baptist minister. "And Davis said he still will not issue a license to a same sex couple. As to why he changed his position, Davis said he wants to serve opposite-sex couples."

“There’s a lot of hard decisions that come with being that (an elected official) and one of them is I wasn’t doing other people right by not issuing them licenses and when the governor and attorney general both came out and said a blank license is fine, give them the paper, it’s all right,” Davis told Rowell.

However, a spokesman for the attorney general's office told Rowell that the licenses issued from Davis’s office have not been altered.

Davis is no relation to Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed by a federal judge for refusing in a lawsuit to issue marriage licenses. Casey Davis and the other Kentucky clerk refusing to do issue licenses, Whitley County Clerk Kay Schwarz, have not been sued.

Casey "Davis also said that since Kim Davis had been sued by opposite-sex couples seeking licenses in Rowan County, he hoped to avoid that fate by reversing his position on opposite-sex couples," Rowell reports. He said a group of county clerks are “putting together a form hoping to satisfy both sides and one that the legislature will pass a bill that accommodates for both.”

Most rural county clerks quietly issuing same-sex marriage licenses regardless of personal views

While Kim Davis, County Clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has grabbed national headlines and been ridiculed on Saturday Night Live for refusing to issue marriage licenses based on religious objections, most of the nation's 3,100 clerks have quietly followed the law with little fanfare, Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. (Andy Brusseau photo: Evonne Hoback, county clerk of McMinn County, Tennessee)

Evonne Hoback, clerk of Tennessee’s McMinn County, a rural county that lies between Knoxville and Chattanooga in the southeast portion of the state, told Marema, “Within 30 minutes of the Supreme Court ruling, we had a phone call from someone in the LGBT community asking what we were going to do about same-sex marriage licenses. I assured them that all systems were go as soon as another agency was ready to roll with the computer system.”

Hoback said the only holdup was that "the state needed to change labels on the standardized electronic form to accommodate same-sex couples—for example, using 'surname' instead of 'maiden name,'" Marema writes. "The state and McMinn County were ready to take applications the same day as the court ruling on June 26, Hoback said." She told Marema, “We just did it without pomp and circumstance. It’s the law, and our office takes the law very seriously . . . We are here to serve people. We are here to help people. This is a public-service office . . . My responsibilities are to keep our tax dollars safe, do a good job and stay within my budget. It’s not my job to judge the world.”

While clerks other than Davis have refused to issue marriage licenses, most have complied with the law, Marema writes. "Other clerks like Wayne Nabors in Putnam County, Tennessee, have issued same-sex licenses, even though they disagree on religious grounds with the Supreme Court ruling. He told reporters, 'I have a statutory authority and a job to do.'" (Read more)

Ky. clerk says office will issue marriage licenses, but they will be invalid without her approval

The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed earlier this month for refusing to issue marriage licenses—based on religious grounds—returned to work this week with a promise not to interfere with deputy clerks issuing marriage licenses that she suggests will be invalid because they do not include her name, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis said Monday that "the 'unauthorized' documents will say they are issued 'pursuant to a federal court order' instead of including her name and title." (Associated Press photo by Timothy Easley: Kim Davis at a press conference today)

Davis said she "altered the wording of the licenses so that they no longer bear her name or the title of 'Rowan County Clerk,' which she says wrongly suggests her approval," Cheves writes. She told reporters, "Any unauthorized licenses they issue will not have my name, my title or my authority on it. Instead, the licenses will say that they were issued pursuant to a federal court order."

While Davis said she "has 'grave doubts' about the validity of marriage licenses containing the altered wording," Kentucky family law experts "say that two qualified adults who marry in good faith typically are considered legally wed regardless of the precise wording on paperwork filed to record their marriage at the courthouse," Cheves writes.

Davis also said she holds no ill will towards her deputies, especially Brian Mason, the deputy clerk who issued marriage licenses in Davis' absence, Cheves writes. Davis told reproters, "I love my deputy clerks, and I hate that they have been caught in the middle. If any of them feels that they must issue an unauthorized license to avoid being thrown in jail, I understand their tough choice, and I will take no action against them." (Read more)

Saying 'I do, I do, I do,' more than 9 million Americans have been married at least three times

Americans love to get married so much that more than 9 million U.S. residents—or 5.3 percent of the married population—have been married at least three times, Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post. State-level data shows where residents are most likely to get married at least three times, and several states with large rural populations lead the way.

Arkansas is No. 1 in serial marriage, with 10.8 percent of married residents having been married at least three times, Ingraham writes. Oklahoma is second at 9.7 percent, followed by: Idaho, 8.7 percent; Alabama, 8.6 percent; and Nevada and Tennessee, 8.5 percent. In Kentucky, where critics of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis—who has refused to issue marriage licenses because of religious beliefs—have taken her to task for being married four times, 7.9 percent of state residents have been married at least three times.

"By contrast, states in the northeast and upper Midwest have the lowest rates of serial marriage," Ingraham writes. "New Jersey has the absolute lowest rate, with only 1.9 percent of ever-married residents having been married three times or more. I've put the numbers for all the states in a table below." (Post map)

Ky. clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses jailed; same-sex couple gets license Friday morning

UPDATED, Sept. 4: "James Yates and William Smith Jr. paid $35.50 and filled out some paperwork early Friday to become the first couple to get a marriage license in Rowan County since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage June 26, prompting a license ban by County Clerk Kim Davis," John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Herald-Leader photo by Pablo Alcala: Rowan County deputy clerk Brian Mason shook hands with William Smith Jr., center, and James Yates on Friday morning after granting them a marriage license)

A federal judge today ordered an elected Kentucky county clerk jailed for contempt of court after she refused on religious grounds to obey his order to resume issuing marriage licenses. U.S. District Judge David Bunning said he chose not to fine Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis because her supporters were planning to raise money to pay the fine. "Plaintiffs in the case had asked Bunning to fine Davis, but they specifically requested that he not jail her," notes John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/09/03/4018514_federal-judge-jails-rowan-county.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Bunning ordered Davis's six deputies to issue licenses, and five of them said they would comply. "The one holdout was Ms. Davis’s son, Nathan," Alan Blinder reports for The New York Times. "Another hearing was scheduled for later Thursday, and Judge Bunning was expected to consider a request that Ms. Davis be released if she agreed to not interfere with marriage licenses for same-sex couples."

Bunning gave Davis "the chance to stay out of jail if she 'purged her contempt' by allowing one of her deputies to sign marriage licenses in her place," James Higdon and Sandhya Somashekhar report for The Washington Post. "But through an attorney, Davis told the judge that 'She does not grant her authority nor would allow any employee to issue those licenses.' Davis’s decision means the 49-year-old elected public servant will be kept in custody indefinitely as the legal wrangling over her case continues. It also suggests she is willing to martyr herself for her cause, which is the right of public officials to be guided by their personal religious beliefs."

Two other Kentucky clerks, in Casey and Whitley counties, have refused to issue marriage licenses because of their objections to same-sex marriage, but they have not been sued. Neither have any of those in Alabama taking the same stand. The group Freedom to Marry says its surveys of clerks have found 13 in Alabama refusing to issue licenses, Greg Sargent reports for the Post.

Clerk who continues to deny marriage licenses is ordered to appear in court with deputies Thursday

A federal judge has ordered the Kentucky county clerk who continues to refuse marriage licenses to anyone, citing her religious objections to same-sex marriage, to appear in court with her deputies Thursday to explain why she shouldn't be held in contempt of court, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. (Cheves photo: A crowd gathered at the clerk's office Tuesday)

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/09/01/4014743/rowan-county-clerk-continues-to.html#emlnl=Breaking_news#storylink=cpy

This morning Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis "told two couples who asked for marriage licenses that she would not issue them, despite a federal court injunction ordering her to do so," Cheves writes. "In a brief but tense encounter between Davis and a couple dozen marriage-equality demonstrators who crowded into her office, the clerk repeatedly said she was not issuing licenses." When asked "Under whose authority?" she replied, "God's authority. I'm willing to face my consequences, and you all will face your consequences when it comes time for judgment. Plain and simple." For video of the confrontation, from Lexington's WKYT-TV, click here.

Cheves reports, "Outside the Rowan County courthouse, more than 100 protesters—some supporting Davis, others opposing he  shouted slogans at one another from across the entryway. Sheriff's deputies stood and watched, but there were no arrests." District Judge David Bunning "ordered her to resume on Aug. 12, an order she unsuccessfully appealed to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and, over the weekend, to the Supreme Court," which denied her appeal. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union said they are not seeking to have Davis jailed, but fined so heavily that she will be forced to relent or resign. (Read more)

Rowan County is just outside the Eastern
Kentucky Coal Field. (Wikipedia map)

In Kentucky, an elected official can only be removed by impeachment or conviction for official misconduct, which is currently being pursued by the county attorney through the office of Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee for governor in the Nov. 3 election. Religious conservatives have criticized Conway for not appealing the initial ruling against the state's ban on same-sex marriage; that was one of the rulings upheld by the Supreme Court in June. For coverage from the local weekly, go to www.themoreheadnews.com.

Ky. clerk ordered to issue marriage licenses turned away a same-sex couple on Thursday morning

UPDATE, Aug. 26: The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the clerk's request for a stay of the injunction while she appeals it. A three-judge panel of the court found "little or no likelihood that the clerk in her official capacity will prevail on appeal," because "It cannot be defensibly argued that the holder of the Rowan County clerk's office, apart from who personally occupies that office, may decline to act in conformity with the United States Constitution as interpreted by a dispositive holding of the United States Supreme Court." For a Lexington Herald-Leader story, click here.


UPDATE, Aug. 17: The judge refused to grant the stay the clerk requested, but issued a temporary stay until she can appeal his refusal. UPDATE, Aug. 13: Despite a federal injunction, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has already turned away at least one same-sex couple trying to obtain a marriage license, Mike Wynn reports for The Courier-Journal. "David Moore, who is trying to marry his partner of 17 years, David Ermold, visited the clerk's office early Thursday, but a deputy clerk told him that the office is still not issuing the forms."

A federal judge in Kentucky has ordered marriage licenses to be issued by a county clerk who stopped issuing them because of her religious objections to the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in all states.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, left, appealed, and her lawyer said he would ask U.S. District Judge David Bunning to stay his order until the appeal could be heard. Davis had already filed suit against Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, who said after the ruling that clerks were duty-bound to issue marriage licenses despite their religious beliefs. At least three other clerks, in Casey, Clinton and Whitley counties, all in Appalachia, have said they won't issue marriage licenses, but haven't been sued.

Bunning, a son of former Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said in granting a preliminary injunction against Davis that the state "is not asking her to condone same-sex unions on moral or religious grounds," or restraining her religious activities. "She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, as many Americans do," Bunning wrote in his 28-page order. He said her objections are sincere, but "Her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk."

Bunning ruled in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union for two same-sex couples and two opposite-sex couples, alleging Davis violated their constitutional rights. "The couples argue that they live, work and pay taxes in Rowan County and shouldn’t have to drive elsewhere to obtain the paperwork," Mike Wynn reportsfor The Courier-Journal. Bunning noted that seven county seats are less than an hour's drive from Morehead, the seat of Rowan, "but there are individuals in this rural region of the state who simply do not have the physical, financial or practical means to travel." (C-J photo by Wynn)

Noting that "57 of the state’s 120 elected county clerks have asked Governor Beshear to call a special session of the state legislature to address religious concerns related to same-sex marriage licenses," Bunning asked, "What would stop the other 56 clerks from following Davis’ approach?" if he ruled in her favor. "What might be viewed as an inconvenience for residents of one or two counties quickly becomes a substantial interference when applicable to approximately half of the state."

Rural Ky. clerk says online system would solve objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses

Casey County, Kentucky

A county clerk in Southern Kentucky who has refused to issue any marriage licenses, citing his objections to the Supreme Court ruling supporting same-sex marriages, said there is a simple solution to the problem—create an online system that issues marriage licenses, Jack Brammer reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Casey County Clerk Casey Davis said an online system would enable same-sex couples to get marriage licenses without forcing county clerks to go against their religious beliefs. The county clerk in Rowan County, in northeastern Kentucky, has also refused to issue licenses. (An earlier version of this item incorrectly said they had limited their refusal to same-sex couples.)

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said he would meet with Davis but stated, "my position is clear because I took the same oath they did, and that oath is to uphold that constitutional ruling, regardless as to what you feel about it. But I'll talk to them. I certainly encourage them to go ahead and perform their duties and move along." Beshear also rejected Davis's call for a special session of the legislature to enact online marriage licensing. Earlier, about 1,000 supporters rallied in support of Davis, Larry Rowell and Nicole Burton report for the Casey County News.

Officials in Decatur County, Tennessee, say three employees in the clerk's office "have resigned from their positions because of their opposition" to the decision and their religious beliefs, Tyler Whetstone reports for The Jackson Sun.

A same-sex couple that was turned away while applying for a marriage license last week in Hood County, Texas, is suing the county clerk, who cited religious beliefs in refusing to issue the license, reports KTVT in Dallas. The clerk did say that someone else in her office would accommodate the couple.

South reluctantly falling in line with ruling on same-sex marriage; some county clerks hold out

Southern states that had delayed issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples are now reluctantly falling in line with the Supreme Court ruling, though some county clerks are still refusing to comply, Erik Eckholm and Manny Fernandez report for The New York Times. (NYT photo by Edmund Fountain: Louisiana residents Michael Robinson and Earl Benjamin display their marriage certificate)

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is running for president, said over the weekend that his state would comply when instructed to by a federal appellate court, Eckholm and Fernandez write. Louisiana is the only state not in compliance with the ruling.

Despite Jindal's defiance, many of the state's parishes began issuing marriage licenses on Monday to same-sex couples, "according to Forum for Equality, a marriage-rights group that had sent a letter to parish clerks on Sunday warning that they could be liable for violating couples’ civil rights if they refused to provide licenses," the Times reports.

"Marriages in Mississippi, which had been temporarily halted on Friday by an order from Attorney General Jim Hood, resumed in some cities on Monday after Hood clarified his statement and gave county clerks the right to make their own decisions," the reporters write. Hood said, “If a clerk has issued or decides to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, there will be no adverse action taken by the attorney general. Hood, who is seeking re-election this year for a fourth term, said “a clerk who refuses to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple could be sued by the denied couple and may face liability.”

Campaign for Southern Equality, a gay-rights group, said that by late Monday afternoon, "at least 45 counties in Mississippi were providing marriage licenses to same sex-couples," the Times reports. "In Alabama, despite the clear hostility toward the Supreme Court ruling expressed by some top officials and previous rulings by the State Supreme Court, marriage licenses were being issued in most of the major population centers, although a few county probate judges stopped issuing any kind of marriage licenses, saying they did not want to violate their religious beliefs."

"The Association of County Commissions of Alabama, which advises the county governments, issued a statement on Monday in which it recommended that 'probate judges in Alabama follow the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court beginning at 10 a.m. today,'" Eckholm and Fernandez report.

Some county clerks, mostly citing religious beliefs, have refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Seven counties in Tennessee have not yet begun issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Stacey Barchenger reports for The Tennessean. A few county clerks in Kentucky have said they won't issue licenses, John Cheves reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. For a story on one, from Larry Rowell of the Casey County News, click here.

The county clerk in Cleburne County, Arkansas, resigned rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses, reports The Associated Press. Clerks in other states also have refused to grant same-sex marriage licenses, while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said county clerks can refuse to license gay couples on religious grounds, Daniel Wallis reports for Reuters.

Same-sex marriage OKd; maps shows same-sex couple estimates by county, state policies for gays

State bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision today, meaning that gay couples in 13 states where same-sex marriage was illegal—mostly in states with large rural populations in the Midwest and South—can now marry, Ana Swanson reports for The Washington Post.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, “The court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them." The 13 states were same-sex marriage was illegal were: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan. There are 390,000 same-sex married couples in the U.S. and another 70,000 couples living in the 13 states where same-sex marriage was illegal who would get married in the next three years, according to UCLA's Williams Institute. About one million same-sex couples, married and unmarried, live together in the U.S. (New York Times map; click here for interactive version with county data)

The court ruled in cases from Kentucky, where "voters by a 75 percent margin in 2004 approved a constitutional amendment saying that 'only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage' in the state, and in a recent Bluegrass Poll more than half of registered voters continued to oppose it," Andrew Wolfson notes for The Courier-Journal in Louisville. Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear's "administration has spent $195,400 defending Kentucky's ban in court," after Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic nominee for governor, declined to appeal a lower-court ruling against it, Linda Blackford reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. One of the plaintiffs was Tim Love, so one of the cases decided by the court was Love v. Beshear.

A poll of 1,394 respondents by the University of Texas and The Texas Tribune found that 41 percent of state residents are against same-sex marriage, 14 percent are not sure and 44 percent are in favor, Ross Ramsey reports for the Tribune. A significant gap of opinions existed based on where people live, with 52 percent of urban respondents in favor of same-sex marriage, 43 percent of suburban respondents and 33 percent of rural respondents. More than 52 percent of rural respondents were against same-sex marriage, compared to 29 percent of urban respondents and 44 percent of suburban ones.

"Gay Americans still face disparities on issues like workplace and housing discrimination, hate crime and anti-bullying protection and adoption rights," Jacob Bogage writes for The Washington Post. His story is accompanied by a map drawn by the Movement Advanced Project, "a think tank that researches LGBT policy. The group created a metric to quantify a state's policies toward the LGBT community."

Click on map to view a larger version