MOREHEAD, Ky. — Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk who was released from jail on Tuesday but would not say whether she would now begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was not at work on Wednesday, and will not return until next week.

Liberty Counsel, the legal group that represents Ms. Davis, said she would return to her office at the courthouse here on Monday. One of her lawyers, Mathew D. Staver, said in an email that Ms. Davis, after spending five nights in jail, “needs some rest and time with the family.”

In a written statement, Ms. Davis said she was reviewing “boxes of letters expressing support and prayers from people around the country.”

Her statement included only a glancing reference to the legal turmoil of recent months: “I love God, love people and love my work. I hope we will continue to respect these values and that America remains a place where all three can live in harmony.”

The county clerk was jailed last Thursday after she continued to defy a federal judge’s order that she issue marriage licenses. This summer, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that legalized same-sex marriage, Ms. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, cited her religious beliefs and stopped processing licenses for all couples. The policy prompted the court challenge that ultimately led to Ms. Davis’s jailing; after her confinement, Ms. Davis’s deputies began issuing licenses.

Continue reading the main story What’s Next for Kim Davis and Kentucky’s Gay Marriage Standoff Answers to questions about the case of a Kentucky clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to any couples, gay or straight.

On Tuesday, the Federal District Court judge who ordered Ms. Davis detained, David L. Bunning, said she could go free because her office was “fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.” But he warned Ms. Davis not to interfere “directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.”

“If defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance,” Judge Bunning said in his two-page order, “that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.”

Mr. Staver has not said whether Ms. Davis, a 49-year-old Democrat who was elected county clerk last year, would comply with the terms of Judge Bunning’s order; instead, he told reporters that she would not “violate her conscience.”

On Wednesday morning, one of Ms. Davis’s deputy clerks, Brian Mason, said he was going to “continue business as usual” at least until she returned. Mr. Mason, who sat at a work station with a small sign that reads “marriage license deputy,” was among the deputy clerks who told Judge Bunning last week that he would comply with the court order to issue licenses.

Less than an hour after the clerk’s office opened on Wednesday, two San Francisco men who had previously received a marriage license returned to submit the completed paperwork to Mr. Mason, who accepted it and shook hands with the couple.

OPEN Document Document: Kim Davis Contempt Order Lifted

One of the men, Mark Shrayber, who said he married his partner of about eight years on Tuesday, said he worked for the website Jezebel. “We really were going to come down here anyway to get married, and then it became a story, too,” he said.

Later, Mr. Mason said he would continue to issue licenses, even if Ms. Davis ordered him to cease doing so.

Some of Ms. Davis’s supporters gathered outside Rowan County’s courthouse on Wednesday, but they were outnumbered by police officers and journalists. One man, Ante Pavkovic, briefly stood in the clerk’s office and heckled Ms. Davis’s deputies; he held a sign reading, “Kim broke no laws. Fire the cowardly clerks that are lawbreakers.”

The commotion irked a longtime resident of Rowan County when he came into the office to update his disabled parking permit.

“Good God almighty,” DeWayne Barnett said when he walked into the office. “Why don’t you all cover something worthwhile?”

But he acknowledged that the debate swirling around the clerk’s office had affected him. He would never, he said, vote for Ms. Davis again.

Read more http://rss.nytimes.com/c/34625/f/640350/s/49b35c89/sc/7/l/0L0Snytimes0N0C20A150C0A90C10A0Cus0Ckim0Edavis0Esame0Esex0Emarriage0Bhtml0Dpartner0Frss0Gemc0Frss/story01.htm