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The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples has begun the process of appealing the judge’s ruling that landed her there, her lawyers said on Sunday.

Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk, who said her Christian faith prohibited her from authorizing same-sex marriages, was jailed Thursday for contempt of court. On Sunday, her lawyers filed a notice of appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, on the grounds that her right to due process had been violated, they said.

Mathew Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which is representing Ms. Davis, said her incarceration violated her right to due process because it appeared to stem from the judge’s “previous intention to incarcerate.” He said Ms. Davis had been jailed after a motion of contempt filed by the plaintiffs that asked the court only to fine her.

Mr. Staver said an official from the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson, Ky., where Ms. Davis is being held, had attended the court session and led her away at the end. That, he said, indicated that the judge, David L. Bunning, had planned to jail her before the merits of the contempt motion were heard.

Continue reading the main story Document Appeal Filed in Kim Davis’s Contempt Ruling Lawyers for Ms. Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed last week, filed a notice of appeal on the grounds that her right to due process had been violated.

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“Ms. Davis had no notice of it. The plaintiffs had no notice of it,” Mr. Staver said. “Without proper notice or proper due process, he decided to incarcerate her.”

Ms. Davis’s refusal has made her a heroine among religious conservatives, who say laws protecting gays and legalizing same-sex marriage infringe on the rights of religious people who believe homosexuality is a sin.

Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican, drew criticism on Twitter when he posted a message on Saturday suggesting that Ms. Davis be given a “Rosa Parks Award.”

Her resistance is a bubbling issue for the Republican presidential field.

One of the candidates, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is taking his campaign to Kentucky on Tuesday to rally for Ms. Davis. Appearing on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” he was asked by the host, George Stephanopoulos, why Ms. Davis was not bound by duty as a government employee to obey the Supreme Court.

“Well, you obey it if it’s right,” Mr. Huckabee said. “So I go back to my question: Is slavery the law of the land? Should it have been the law of the land because Dred Scott said so?”

Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, appearing on the show after Mr. Huckabee, disagreed about Ms. Davis’s legal obligation to follow Supreme Court rulings.

“I think, you know, the court has spoken,” he said. “The court has ruled as everyone knows. I — or most people know — I believe in traditional marriage, but the court has ruled.”

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