Former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis violated two same-sex couples’ constitutional rights when she refused to marry them while in office, a federal judge ruled Friday.
In court documents filed yesterday, US District Judge David Bunning ruled against Davis, dismissing her motion for summary judgment in a pair of lawsuits brought against her by two same-sex couples to whom she had refused to grant marriage licenses, CNN reports.
“It is this Court’s opinion that Davis violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to marry and the only remaining issue is the issue of damages,” Bunning wrote in his decision, according to the news network.
The decision marks the final chapter in the lawsuit over Davis’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the US Supreme Court’s ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
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As noted by CNN, “the couples suing Davis, David Ermold and David Moore, and James Yates and William Smith, were denied marriage licenses multiple times by Davis or her office.”
Both couples were later granted marriage licenses by a deputy clerk in September 2015, while Davis was in jail for five days.”
