Kim Davis told Fox News she sees herself as “someone that God is using,” in her ongoing battle with state and federal authorities over marriage equality.
Fox News flew Davis to New York City to speak with anchor Megyn Kelly face to face in the network's Manhattan studio about her continued fight to defy a federal judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Davis said the hardest part of this entire ordeal was the day Judge David Bunning ordered her deputies to issue marriage licenses despite her refusal to do so. “I love you all,” she said she told them, insisting they follow their conscience. “And I will not lead you like sheep to the slaughter.”
Kelly asked the Rowan County, Ky. clerk several direct questions on whether non-Christians should get the same religious accommodations she is demanding, each time getting evasive answers from Davis. "You have millions of Christians who object to this whole same-sex marriage issue," Davis said. "Are their rights invalid? Are their rights not worth anything?"
Davis answered a question about President Obama’s statement in welcoming Pope Francis that the United States was a land of religious freedom, with a laugh: “In 2015, when a county clerk can go to jail because she is upholding her religious beliefs, I would have to question his statement.”
Asked whether she would refuse her own children a marriage license if one of them were gay or lesbian, Davis was swift to say, “I wouldn’t give them a marriage license, no way.”
“I would love them,” Davis said, “because I love all people, but I would not write them a marriage license.” And she told Kelly she loves everyone, including the couples she turned away, and said she prayed for them.
Anyone who thinks she’s a bigot “doesn’t know me,” said Davis.
She said while behind bars she “talked to the Lord” and “sang praises to Him, at the top of my lungs. They probably thought I was insane in there.”
Davis maintains she is taking this stand because of her Christian faith. “My sins are forgiven, they are thrown into a sea of forgetfulness, from the time I gave myself to him.”
Kelly asked about Davis about why she gave a “lecture in religion” to one gay couple, to whom she refused to issue a marriage license, leading to a lawsuit. Davis defended her speech about how God created the Earth and said, simply, “They wanted to know the reason why I wouldn’t issue them one and I gave them the reason.”
When asked what’s next in her battle, and whether she was prepared to go back behind bars, Davis told Kelly in a hushed voice, “Whatever it takes.”
Watch clips from Megyn Kelly’s interview with Fox News below.
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