The clerks ‘nicely’ told the couple they were an affront to God. (Via JoeMyGod) Forgive me for quoting so much but there was so much worth quoting.

Samantha Brookover stood crying in Glenville’s Gilmer County Courthouse last week, humiliated on what was meant to be a celebratory occasion. Brookover and her partner, Amanda Abramovich, wanted a marriage license. They got one — along with an earful from a deputy clerk in the office, who told them that their relationship is wrong and that God will judge them. Brookover and Abramovich had expected maybe an eye roll or some sign of disgust. They said they weren’t anticipating that they would be told they were “an abomination.”..

..”We did not attack them,” Allen said. “We did not yell at them. We were not aggressive with them. I felt I talked nicely to them.”

Brookover and Abramovich, though, say Allen huffed, took their driver’s licenses, made copies, slammed down the copies and then, for two to three minutes, yelled that what they were doing was wrong in her eyes and in God’s eyes and that no one in Gilmer County would ever marry them.

The couple had brought family members. They had the camera ready. It was supposed to be a happy day. Instead, in Brookover’s words, they were “flabbergasted and hurt and angry like you wouldn’t believe.”

Allen said she briefly and calmly told the couple what they were doing was wrong and that God would judge them, and then continued assisting them as she would other couples.

“I just told them my opinion,” she said. “I just felt led to do that. I believe God was standing with me and that’s just my religious belief.”

Asked if her words could possibly have been perceived as an attack to someone of another sexual orientation, who has been belittled because of it, Allen said, “Oh, I’m sure.”

She wouldn’t say how she would treat any future same-sex couples that arrive at the clerk’s office or if she would use the West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, if it passes in the Legislature, to argue that she shouldn’t have to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The legislation, House Bill 4012, could allow people to argue in court that civil rights laws don’t apply to them because of their religious beliefs.

Goff had a phone conversation with Gilmer County Clerk Jean Butcher about the incident. Butcher said she told Goff that her religious beliefs are similar to Moore’s.

“They were issued the license, and that was the main thing,” Butcher told the Gazette-Mail.