A deputy of Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in Kentucky, who has been defying the court in her refusal to issue marriage licence to same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs, said his boss may have invalidated the forms which, he said, have been altered.
Deputy county clerk Brian Mason told a federal court Friday that the marriage licences were changed by Davis when she returned to work last Monday after being jailed for refusing to obey a court order teling her to stop her "no marriage licence" policy.
Davis said she would not prevent her deputies from issuing the licences as long as those do not carry her name or title, according to CNN.
Mason's lawyer Richard Hughes, however, said Davis might have gone beyond that. Davis, he said, changed the marriage licence forms with ones that don't have her name, the name of the county, or reference to a clerk and deputy clerk.
The new form requires Mason to list only his initials instead of his signature with a notarisation beside the initials.
In a separate court filing, the same-sex couple who filed a lawsuit against Davis said she is "requiring her clerk to issue licences in his capacity as a 'notary public' rather than a deputy clerk. ..."
"Mr. Mason's concern is, he does not want to be the party that is issuing invalid marriage licences and he is trying to follow the court's mandate as well as his superior ordering him to issue only these changed forms," Hughes said.
He added, "It also appears to this counsel those changes were made in some attempt to circumvent the court's orders and may have raised to the level of interference against court's orders."
Davis' lawyer, Mat Staver, said "there is no new development with this report."
"Kim Davis said Monday that her name and title would not appear on the forms and later that same day the Governor said the forms were valid," Staver said. "And Judge (David) Bunning's order releasing Kim Davis said a form altered by Brian the day after the contempt hearing while Kim was in jail was valid."
He added, "Kim Davis did not interfere with the Deputy Clerk's issuance of the licences and in fact licences have been issued. The licences were not altered to circumvent the court's order nor did Kim Davis circumvent the order."
It will be up to US District Judge David Bunning to assess whether the new forms are valid or not.
Bunning found Davis in contempt of court and sent her to jail but released her six days later on Sept. 8 after her deputies assured the court that they would issue the marriage licences.
The judge also ordered Davis not to interfere with her deputies.
Bunning has yet to issue any order regarding Mason's filing.
American Civil Liberties Union lawyers for the gay couple is urging the court to allow a lawsuit to have a class-action status.
They also questioned the alterations in the marriage licence form.
"These alterations call into question the validity of the marriage licences issued, create an unconstitutional two-tier system of marriage licences issued in Kentucky and do not comply with this court's September 3 order prohibiting Davis from interfering with the issuance of marriage licences," they said.
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