Kim Davis says she stood up against LGBT bullies for Christian faith reasons

Kim Davis, the county clerk who in 2015 was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex “marriage” licenses, says anyone can be called and used by God.

Davis said this in a new memoir, Under God’s Authority: The Kim Davis Story. She hopes it will offer encouragement to others facing challenges living their Christian faith.

She recently spoke about the ordeal that sent her to jail for refusing to act against her beliefs. The Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk maintains that she holds no ill will toward those who disagree with her pro-marriage convictions and says she only stands before “one judge” – God.

‘My story is one of redemption and transformation’

Davis’ story is a harbinger of white (bloodless) martyrdom for Christians in the age of marriage redefinition.

It also brings to light the question: Who’s to say whom God will call and whom he can redeem?

“My story is one of redemption and transformation,” Davis said. 

Ridiculed for refusing to affirm gay “marriage” because she proclaimed her Christian faith while having multiple marriages in her past, Davis said she’s learned that one’s past can make one “a unique vessel” for God to use.

It was part of her conversion process to learn that God is not limited by human failings and that it’s up to God whether he can use her for His plan. Belief in God entails challenge, she told LifeSiteNews, but trusting Him is well worth the cost.

“Christians need to know that it’s not if they’re called – it’s when they’re called,” said Davis. “And if you answer Him, God will be faithful.”

“People with challenges to their faith need to understand that that’s how their faith grows,” she added.

Jail

Davis said God knew exactly what she needed while incarcerated. She did a lot of praying, singing, and walking. She took part in a Bible study, and she cried.

“I knew I would walk away better spiritually than when I started,” said Davis. And she found particular inspiration in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham City Jail.

Media attacks came from people who ‘never bothered to know me, to ask me’

A lot of people asked Davis throughout the religious freedom controversy if she was going to write a book, she recalled. The mainstream media showed just a portion of what was occurring, she said, and while she’d been private about the situation, she later began to feel the need to share her story.

“The media had portrayed me as such a devil, a bigot, a demon,” Davis said. “But they never bothered to know me, to ask me.”

So she co-wrote Under God’s Authority with Liberty Counsel Director of Creative Services John Aman and the group’s founder and Chairman Mat Staver. Liberty Counsel represented Davis in the litigation related to her declining to provide marriage licenses. The legal group is selling the book on its website.

Davis chronicled her experience via tape recorder to prepare for the book, she said, and everything in it is her account. Telling the story can still bring her to tears, but there is also some laughter. Through it all, Davis said she grew spiritually.

“I have never second guessed what I was doing and why I was doing it,” she said. “God placed me here and for me to walk away would have been an act of sheer disobedience.”

The title Under God’s Authority references an exchange Davis had in her office with a same-sex couple attempting to force her to issue them a marriage license. This was shortly after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling imposed same-sex “marriage” across the U.S.

Davis had opted to stop issuing marriage licenses bearing her name altogether, rather than take part in supplying them for homosexual partners. A few same-sex couples were in the Rowan County Clerk’s office seeking a marriage license shortly after Obergefell came down. When advised the office wasn’t issuing them, one of the men asked Davis “under whose authority” her office was declining to issue the licenses.

Davis responded, “under God’s authority,” to which the man replied, “I don’t believe in your God.”

The man’s male partner filmed the exchange, which quickly went viral on the Internet. Davis was not the only Kentucky county clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses, and the counties adjacent to hers were supplying them. Same-sex couples could have easily obtained “marriage” licenses elsewhere, but they sued Davis anyway.

Davis, her office, and her family became the object of extreme vitriol, including death threats. Things got ugly quickly and stayed that way for a long time, she said.

‘Those who scream for inclusion and tolerance the loudest are the least tolerant’ “The thing I learned is that those who scream for inclusion and tolerance the loudest are the least tolerant,” she said. “It became personal for each and every person that disagreed with me.”

Davis reiterates what she has said from the beginning about her stance.

“For me this was never about being against somebody,” she said. “This was about standing up for the word of God.”Issuing the licenses in her name would be akin to accepting and participating in sin, Davis said, “and I couldn’t do that.”“I have no animosity toward anybody,” she emphasized. “There’s no hate in my body at all.”

Another aspect lost in the media storm was the fact that Davis never responded in-kind to those who attacked or ridiculed her in person, or with nasty emails and phone calls – not even the party who sent her excrement in the mail.

“The only negative word I said throughout all of this was the word ‘no,’” she said.

Pope Francis controversy

The media uproar intensified even more after Davis and her husband met with Pope Francis during his September 2015 trip to the U.S. The meeting came at the invitation of the U.S. Apostolic Nunciature.

The Pope thanked Davis for her courage in the meeting and asked her to pray for him.

Francis told Davis to “stay strong,” and gave the Davises two rosaries that he’d personally blessed.

The Holy See Press Office and other papal spokesmen subsequently tried to play down the meeting with Pope Francis and say it should not be taken as a form for support for her position on gay “marriage.” LGBT advocates attempted to discredit the meeting as well.

“They didn’t want anyone to be on my side,” she said. “They wanted me to stand completely alone.”

“I’m confident the pope meant what he said,” Davis told LifeSiteNews, “and there’s no doubt what he said.”

Man who tried to force Davis to give him a gay ‘marriage’ license trying to unseat her

David Ermold, who tried unsuccessfully to get a same-sex marriage license from Davis, is now challenging her for her County Clerk seat. He is the man who questioned under whose authority Davis had ceased issuing licenses.

Currently four candidates are on the ballot for the May 22 primary. The winner will face Davis in the November general election.

Kentucky law was changed in 2016 to remove county clerks’ names, personal identification, and authorization from state marriage licenses. This was the religious accommodation Davis had sought all along.

‘I stand before one judge’

Suffering the ridicule for her stance, Davis is mindful of one thing.

“I stand before one judge,” she said.

“God is our portion,” Davis added. “For me He is everything. Whatever we have to endure on earth pales in comparison to what He did for us.”