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Bill to protect Ky. clerk Kim Davis passed by committee

Joseph Gerth
The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal
Kim Davis

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A Senate committee on Wednesday voted for a bill that is intended to shield Kentucky’s county clerks from having to put their names on the marriage licenses of same-sex couples.

Senate Bill 5 passed the Senate State and Local Government Committee without serious opposition but with some concern that a plan to create two different marriage licenses would tend to treat gays and lesbians differently.

The bill is an attempt largely to codify an executive order by Gov. Matt Bevin that was designed to allow Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis to have her office issue gay marriage licenses without having her name on them.

Davis gained national fame over the summer when she refused to comply with a judge’s order to issue the licenses to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said gay people have a right under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be married.

Timeline of a Kentucky clerk's gay-marriage defiance

The bill would create license forms that would allow for a county clerk’s name to not appear on the form. Instead, just the name of the office’s employee that records the license would be on it.

Republican Sen. Steve West, the bill’s sponsor, said that under the plan, one form would include spaces for “bride” and “groom” and the other one would include spaces for “first party” and “second party.” He said county clerks asked for different forms because constituents wanted them.

Democratic Sen. Morgan McGarvey called for a floor amendment that would create a single form that would allow each person to decide whether they wanted to be identified as “bride” or “groom” or simply as “spouse.”

“You would just have one form ... it would probably be cheaper, it would be more efficient and wouldn’t treat people differently and I just don’t see the downside of that,” McGarvey said.

Michael Long, left, and Timothy Long kiss outside the Rowan County Clerk's Office on Friday raising their fist clinched high in to the air after being the second couple to receive marriage license documents following the Kim Davis ruling on Thursday. "In our minds, we've always been married," Timothy said. Sept. 4, 2015

West said he wouldn’t call the proposed amendment a “deal breaker” but declined to say if he would support such an amendment.

“I would obviously review it, look at all the particulars,” he said. “We looked at that option, we considered that option. ... I would consider his amendment but I’m not going to say we would look on it favorably.”

West, whose district includes Rowan County, said Davis has been kept abreast of the bill and the changes made in it since it was first filed in early January and is on board with the changes.

“We’ve been working on this since I filed Senate Bill 5 and so there has been a lot of back and forth between the clerks and the governor’s office. We did include Kim Davis and those people as well because they are some of the people primarily affected by this,” West said.

Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign, said that he has concerns about the bill because it creates an appearance of “disparate” treatment based on whether the couple is gay or straight.

“We’d prefer to see one form. That way we’re not saying there is one set of marriage licenses for one group of folks and one for another group. ... If we create one marriage form, it streamlines the process and says to everyone, ‘Everyone has the same and equal opportunity to get the same marriage license,’ ” Hartman said.

“Separate has seldom been equal,” he said.

The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote.