Kentucky county clerk who refused same-sex marriage licenses loses re-election bid

Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who was briefly jailed for defying a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has lost her bid for re-election.

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As reported by CNN, the controversial conservative Republican was beaten by Democrat Elwood Caudill Jr. in Rowan County by about 650 votes, according to unofficial results posted by the state elections board.

Davis, part of a denomination called Apostolic Christianity, made headlines in 2015 after she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, despite a historic Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriages across the country the same year. 

Davis was found in contempt of court for not issuing the licenses and also stopping her six deputy clerks from signing them, and she spent five days in jail.

Kentucky later changed the law, so that marriage licenses statewide that no longer require county clerks' names to appear on them.

Davis was soon back in the seat, earning just shy of $80,000 a year as country clerk, which WDRB reports as more than twice what the average job pays in Rowan County, Kentucky.

Caudill won the Democratic nomination in May to take on Davis, defeating David Ermold, a gay man who was denied a marriage license by Davis "under God's authority," in 2015. 

Ermold announced he was running for county clerk in December, and raised more than $200,000 in funding. But Caudill, chief deputy in the county property valuation office, eventually won over the Democrats.

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