Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who served a 6-day sentence for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is guilty of bigamy, according to a state bylaw issued by Isaac Shelby, the first elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Owing to a clerical error, Davis neglected to have her divorce decree with first husband Dwain Wallace properly notarized before eventually marrying Joe Davis, her current, second and fourth husband. Before marrying Davis, she conceived twins during an adulterous affair with construction worker Thomas McIntyre, which led to the breakup of her first marriage, and interfered with her second.
After Joe and Kim Davis’ divorce, Kim reconciled with, and later married McIntyre, after Joe Davis signed a parental rights agreement for the twins fathered by McIntyre. McIntyre and Davis’s marriage lasted less than a year. Two years after the McIntyre breakup, Kim Davis and Joe Davis remarried.
Since Kentucky law found that Kim Davis was still technically married to Dwain Wallace while “in cohabitation” with McIntyre before their eventual breakup – and before the first of her two marriages to Joe Davis, which book-ended the less than year-long marriage to McIntyre – the technical definition of bigamy was met.
To further add to her woes, Davis apparently failed to notarize the parental rights papers between Joe and the McIntyre twins. Due to that oversight, the Kentucky bylaw finds that Kim now owes husband number 1 over $100K in child support, even though they were not his biological children, but because her first marriage was unknowingly still in effect while she was in the adulterous relationship with McIntyre before remarrying Davis.
Legal scholars also say the Davis matter now serves as a test case for the issue of trigamy: the condition of having three spouses, resulting from a marriage to a third party when the divorce status between a first and a second party has not been finalized, or if a marriage between 2 and 3 parties has not been legally nullified before another legal union is entered into, whether or not the parties are aware of their legal, marital status (the Taylor Statute).
Davis returned to her job as county clerk on Sep. 14, and read a statement to the press vowing not to interfere with her deputy clerks’ issuance of licenses to gay couples, mandated by law. Davis said current licenses would not bear her name, and would not carry her authority:
“I am no hero. I’m just a person that’s been transformed by the grace of God, who wants to work, be with my family. I just want to serve my neighbors quietly without violating my conscience.”
Davis was found in contempt of a federal judge’s order earlier this month and served six days behind bars. She has since filed a second request to further delay her religious freedom violation case.
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