Marriages are handled across the street, where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has ignited the passions of religious conservatives around the world by refusing to authorize weddings for anyone since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. In this eastern Kentucky town, now center stage in a national conflict, angry words and gestures have too often replaced quiet conversation - or, more often, silence - on a subject deeply personal to both sides. [...] two months ago, the people in this small town in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky had an unspoken agreement to tiptoe around each other's sexual identities and religious beliefs. [...] that uneasy truce was shattered after Davis, an Apostolic Christian, cited God's authority to defy a federal judge's order that she issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A judge threw her in jail last week, drawing a swarm of protesters and satellite trucks to the courthouse lawn and forcing townspeople to bring their deeply held beliefs out into the open, some for the first time. In what was once a bustling hub of railroad traffic between Winchester and Ashland, the trains stopped running in 1974, preserving Morehead's small-town feel. [...] recently it was mostly known as the home for Morehead State University and its men's basketball team, which occasionally lands in the NCAA tournament. The university has attracted a diverse population of religious and social viewpoints in an otherwise conservative swath of eastern Kentucky, and shaped a generation of political leaders, including Hawkins' boss, Walter Blevins, who spent his summers attending the university's academic prep program. Ante Pavkovic, a pastor from North Carolina, stood in the lobby of the county clerk's office Wednesday with a sign demanding that Davis' employees be fired for disobeying their boss by licensing same-sex marriages, even though they too face the threat of jail or fines if they defy the judge.
In Kentucky, A Clerk Disrupts An Unspoken Agreement
By ADAM BEAM and CLAIRE GALOFARO, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Sat, 09/12/2015 - 1:12am
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