MOREHEAD, Ky. — The Rowan County clerk who is at the center of a controversy over same-sex marriage has a personal checkered history when it comes to the institution.

Kim Davis had been divorced three times and had two children out of wedlock. She is married to her current husband, Joe Davis, for a second time.

However, all that was before she repented and dedicated her life to serving the Lord in 2011, according to her lawyers. 

Davis cited her Christian conviction and opposition to same-sex marriage when she stopped issuing all licenses in the wake of this summer’s landmark decision by the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage across the country. 

On Tuesday, despite an order from a federal judge and ruling by the Supreme Court that the decision be upheld, she stood firm to her beliefs when it came to not giving a marriage license to same-sex couples.

Even with a steady diet of criticism over her actions, Davis hasn’t budged.

She has her own army of supporters who seem willing to stand with her on the issue.

The groups chanted back and forth in front of the Rowan County Courthouse on Tuesday.

“Do your job!” yelled the detractors.

“Stand firm!” fired back her supporters.

Davis and six members of her staff in the Rowan County clerk’s office have been summoned to the federal court in Ashland, Kentucky on Thursday morning.

The last time she was here the supporters outnumbered her critics by a 2-to-1 margin outside the courthouse.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning will hear contempt charges leveled against Davis by couples who sued her. She faces possible fines and jail time.

Davis has become a polarizing nationwide figure because of her stance in the gay marriage issue. She has had death threats, according to her husband.

She has a history in the Rowan County clerk’s office, too, before becoming the clerk in January. Her mother, Jean Bailey, was the clerk for 37 years and when she announced her retirement, Davis, who had been a deputy clerk for 27 years, ran successfully as a Democrat to succeed her.

Davis won by 23 votes in a three-way primary and then defeated Republican John Cox in the general election. She ran on a promise of continuity of service that her mother, who was so respected in the community, had laid out before her.

Davis said “under God’s authority” on Tuesday when asked why she wasn’t issuing marriage licenses.

She has boldly bucked a series of federal court orders and again denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Tuesday.

Davis is not issuing any marriage licenses — to straight or gay couples — because it would be discriminatory to do so, she said.

Dozens, some from both sides of the issue, were packed inside the lobby of the clerk’s office Tuesday when Davis issued her latest refusal to

David Ermold and David Moore. She also earlier said no to April Miller and Karen Roberts. After the landmark Supreme Court decision in June, Davis announced she would issue no more marriage licenses.

Four couples, two gay and two straight, sued her, arguing she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her personal Christian faith. Bunning ordered her to issue the licenses, an appeals court affirmed that order, and the Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene, leaving her out of legal options.

“To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of a marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a heaven or hell decision,” she wrote in a statement.

Davis has been married to her current husband twice, with a divorce and another husband in between, according to court records.

She married her first husband, Dwain Wallace, when she was 18, and divorced him in 1994. In a 2008 divorce filing, she said she had two children out of wedlock in 1994.

In 1996, she married Joe Davis for the first time. They divorced in 2006. The next year, Davis wed Thomas McIntryre, though their marriage lasted less than a year. She re-married Joe Davis in 2009.

Her religious awakening came two years later, she said in her statement.

“She’s a changed person,” said her lawyer Mat Staver, founder of the Christian law firm Liberty Counsel. “She’s regretful and sorrowful. That life she led before is not the life she lives now. She asked for and received forgiveness and grace. That’s why she has such a strong conscience.”

Davis detailed her religious awakening in her statement. She said her mother-in-law asked, as a “dying wish,” that Davis attend church.

“There I heard a message of grace and forgiveness and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ,” Davis wrote. “I am not perfect. No one is. But I am forgiven and I love my Lord and must be obedient to Him and to the Word of God.”

She is a member of Solid Rock Apostolic Church in Rowan County, according to friends.

County taxpayers pay Davis $80,000 as the elected clerk. She cannot be fired, only impeached from the position.