Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County Kentucky who achieved 15 minutes of national infamy for refusing to grant marriage licenses back in 2015, was ousted form her office Tuesday evening.
Republican Davis was defeated by Elwood Caudill Jr. by a margin of about 700 votes, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.
“I genuinely offer gratitude to my family, and campaign supporters during the last year, for all their hard work, contributions, and commitment,” Caudill offered in a triumphant Facebook post shortly after the results were confirmed. “Moving our community forward means staying focused on our future. I believe that as a community we must continue to work together toward a more prosperous and cohesive Rowan County.”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10218036236803293&set=a.2278293882641&type=3&theater
Once an unknown state bureaucrat, Davis made headlines back in 2015 after defying the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage through the United States.
“Marriage is between one man and one woman,” she said at the time according to the New York Times, adding that in her view same-sex unions were “not of God.”
She became a minor celebrity on among evangelical Americans for her stand and decision to go to jail rather than grant the licenses. She attracted support from former Fox News host and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and met Pope Francis who thanked her for her “courage”
Most recently, Davis made news over a book she was writing documenting the ordeal.
“Kim chronicles her dramatic encounters with furious, fist-pounding, homosexual men and the hate mail that flooded her office,” reads a (now deleted) product description of the book, “Under God’s Authority: The Kim Davis Story.”
“Kim takes you behind-the-scenes of the unlikely saga that took America by storm in 2015. She tells how God transformed her life in 2011, why she almost retired in 2014, and how she knew-six months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous 2015 same-sex ‘marriage’ opinion-she was headed for jail.”
The book is being promoted by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal organization which defended Davis during her campaign against same-sex marriage.