In Irion County, Texas, population 1,500, clerk Molly Criner also declared through the Liberty Counsel that she would issue no licenses. She said on Friday that no same-sex couples have asked for one. She refused to say whether she would issue them, or opt to go to jail instead.

Liberty Counsel attorney Mat Staver said after meeting with Davis in jail Friday that “she is a prisoner of her conscience.” He quoted the letter King wrote from his Birmingham jail cell in 1963, rallying civil rights activists to challenge unjust laws and pay the consequences if necessary to force peaceful change.

He described Davis as the first American imprisoned for a religious objection to gay marriage.

The lawyers suing her dismissed that notion. “This is the billionth time a person has been jailed for violating a court order,” Canon said.