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Brian Mason, left, a deputy clerk, issued a marriage license to James Yates, center, and his partner, William Smith Jr., on Friday.Credit Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press

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MOREHEAD, Ky. — A same-sex couple received a marriage license here on Friday, the first such couple to get one a day after the county clerk, Kim Davis, was jailed by a federal judge for refusing court orders to issue the licenses.

The couple, James Yates, 41, and William Smith, Jr., 33, entered the Rowan County Courthouse shortly after it opened, walking through throngs of protesters. Supporters of Ms. Davis yelled Bible passages and held up signs, including one briefly held up by Ms. Davis’s husband, Joe Davis, that read, “Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

On Thursday, Ms. Davis, who has become a symbol of religious opposition to same-sex marriage, was jailed for contempt after defying a federal court order to issue licenses to gay couples. She later rejected a proposal to allow her deputies to grant the licenses, which could have led to her release.

After one of Ms. Davis’s lawyers told a federal court on Thursday that she would not retreat from her stand Judge David L. Bunning secured commitments from five of Ms. Davis’s deputies to begin giving out the licenses.

“The court cannot condone the willful disobedience of its lawfully issued order,” Judge Bunning said in holding Ms. Davis in contempt. “If you give people the opportunity to choose which orders they follow, that’s what potentially causes problems.”

On Friday, Mr. Yates and Mr. Smith, with clasped hands and tight smiles, made their way through a dense thicket of reporters and photographers and stood before an employee of the clerk’s office, one of five who had told Judge Bunning the day before that they would issue licenses in Ms. Davis’s absence.

Ms. Davis remained in jail on Friday, and her husband said Friday that his wife planned to stay “as long as it takes” until a law was passed that gave county clerks like her the option not to issue marriage licenses that violated their religious convictions.

“She has done her job,” he said. “Just because five Supreme Court judges make a ruling, it’s not a law.”

He also said that he did not think that the marriage licenses the workers in the clerk’s office would be issuing today would be legally valid.

At the courthouse on Friday, Mr. Smith said he and his partner, who live here in this small Appalachian city, had tried to obtain a license several times, but were denied each time. They spoke softly as they conducted their business with Deputy Clerk Brian Mason. Amid a crush of reporters, a few lines of dialogue could be heard:

“And you’re not related, right?” Mr. Mason asked.

“Correct,” one of the men said.

Papers were passed. There was a ring of a cash register and change given.

“Congratulations,” the county official said, shaking hands with one of the newlyweds.

Then the couple hugged, tightly, bringing a close to one of the most dramatic moments since a decision by the Supreme Court in June established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

The couple exited the building to a roar of protest from a placard-waving group to their left, and the cheers of “Love has won” from gay-rights supporters on their right.

They said that they wanted to go celebrate with their family members, but they did offer a few comments. Mr. Smith said he felt “elated.” He added: “I think it shows that equality is everywhere.”

When asked why it was so important to get married in his home county, Mr. Smith said: “This is where we live. This is where we pay taxes. This is our home.”

The judge’s decision to jail Ms. Davis, a 49-year-old Democrat who was elected last year, immediately intensified the attention focused on her. A longtime government worker, she is one of three of Kentucky’s 120 county clerks who contend that their religious beliefs prevent them from recognizing same-sex marriages. Within hours of Ms. Davis’s imprisonment, some Republican presidential candidates declared their support for her, a sign that her case was becoming an increasingly charged cause for Christian conservatives.

Judge Bunning’s decision to jail Ms. Davis went beyond the wishes of the couples who sued the clerk this summer; their lawyers had asked that she be fined. Some advocates for gay rights quickly expressed concern that Ms. Davis’s jailing would make her a sympathetic figure to religious conservatives and prompt lawmakers in Kentucky and elsewhere to push for new laws carving out exemptions for public officials who oppose same-sex marriage.

When asked if he viewed her as a “martyr,” Mr. Davis said: “No, I view her as my wife. I love her. I’d do her time for her.”

Mr. Davis, 49, who is self-employed, said that he had tried to hold his tongue in recent days, but was now intent on speaking out. He said his “heart dropped” on Thursday when he heard that Judge Bunning had ordered her jailed. He said he was somewhat worried for his wife’s health. He said she suffered from asthma and required an inhaler treatment twice a day. But he said that she had called him from jail and that she had said she was doing fine.

Mr. Davis blasted Judge Bunning, calling him a “bully” — “no different than a bully in high school, or out here on the street,” he said.

Ms. Davis’s appearance before Judge Bunning, and her subsequent detention, was a signal development in a case that surfaced soon after the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. Faced with the ruling, Ms. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, directed her office to stop providing marriage licenses to any applicants.

“Marriage is between one man and one woman,” Ms. Davis said during a frequently tearful turn on the witness stand on Thursday. When Roger Gannam, one of her lawyers, asked whether she approved of same-sex marriage, she replied, “It’s not of God.”

The legal odyssey of Ms. Davis, who was being held Thursday night at a county detention center, began with a ruling last month that ordered her to issue licenses. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and, on Monday, the Supreme Court denied her requests to prevent the order from taking effect.

Ms. Davis’s decision on Tuesday to refuse licenses to same-sex couples led to the contempt hearing. She testified that she had not hesitated to maintain her opposition to issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

Despite the issuing of the license on Friday, the deep chasm over the issue remained. Standing in front of the courthouse was Mike Reynolds, an Army veteran who said that while gay-rights advocates might have won the battle, opponents would win the war.

Mr. Reynolds, 36, had a patch on his leather vest signaling his service in Afghanistan, as well as a Confederate flag patch. His ball cap proclaimed his love for Jesus.

He said that the Rapture would soon be upon everyone, and that gay people would be banished to hell “if they don’t repent of their ways before the end.”

Later, other protesters began chanting “Free Kim.”

Reaction from national gay rights supporters to the marriage license being issued here was swift.

“Today, the needless wait for loving and committed couples in Rowan County, Kentucky, has finally ended,” the legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, Sarah Warbelow, said in a statement. “Denied a constitutionally protected right to marriage by a public official who thought her religious opinion placed her above the law, these couples waited far too long for marriage equality in the place they call home. Justice, equality, and the law have finally prevailed.”