MOREHEAD, Ky. — Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis shut her blinds at work Tuesday to block the view of rainbow-clad protesters outside. They carried flowers and flags and signs saying “you don’t own marriage.” They chanted “do your job.”

Moments later, she told a lesbian couple who walked in asking for a license to try another county.

Davis is among a handful of public officials across the Bible Belt so repulsed by the thought of enabling a same-sex marriage that they are defying the U.S. Supreme Court and refusing to issue a license to anyone, gay or straight.

“It’s a deep-rooted conviction; my conscience won’t allow me to do that,” Davis told The Associated Press. “It goes against everything I hold dear, everything sacred in my life.”

Some judges and clerks in Alabama and Texas have done the same.