Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis greets supporters Monday July 20, 2015, at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky. Davis was sued in federal court for not issuing marriage licenses due to her religious beliefs. 

CINCINNATI, Ohio – A federal appeals court has refused to delay an injunction requiring a Kentucky clerk to issue marriage licenses to both straight and gay couples.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday denied the stay, which Rowan County, Kentucky, Clerk Kim Davis Davis had asked for pending her appeal of a lower court order.

A three-judge panel ruled Davis has “little or no likelihood” of winning her case on appeal.

Davis had said the issuing licenses to same-sex couples would infringe on her First Amendment religious-freedom rights, but the judges ruled that the injunction “operates not against Davis personally, but against the holder of her office of Rowan County Clerk.”

Earlier this year, Davis said she and other county clerks wrote to as many state legislators as they could find addresses for in January, asking for a bill to be drafted in order to protect clerks from issuing licenses that conflicted with their religious convictions. The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26 decision legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, prompting clerks in Kentucky and 13 other states where it had previously been illegal to issue licenses to same-sex couples for the first time.

Davis, whose rural county of 23,000 people is about 60 miles east of Lexington, said ordered her office to stop issuing any marriage licenses to straight or same-sex couples this summer because she did not want to violate her religious beliefs.

The judges ruled that the clerk may not decline to conform with the constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

Davis had asked for the stay after U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning granted a preliminary injunction requiring Davis to issue the licenses and had denied her a stay pending the appeal earlier this month.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit in July on behalf of four Rowan County couples, two of them same-sex and two opposite sex.

Davis also sued Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear this summer, saying his directives to clerks to issue licenses regardless of personal beliefs was infringing on her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion granted by the U.S. Constitution. She also believed the directives violated Kentucky religious freedom laws.

But Bunning wrote in his opinion that he disagreed with Davis. He wrote that Beshear was giving directives to the clerks in order to ensure Kentucky policies matched the changes in federal law following the Supreme Court decision.

“Our form of government will not survive unless we, as a society, agree to respect the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions, regardless of our personal opinions,” Bunning wrote. “Davis is certainly free to disagree with the Court’s opinion, as many Americans likely do, but that does not excuse her from complying with it. To hold otherwise would set a dangerous precedent.”

Bunning rejected her arguments and said the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in the appeal.

Some county officials in Southern states — including Cleburne County Clerk Dana Guffey in Heber Springs, Arkansas; Decatur County Clerk Gwen Pope and two others in Decaturville, Tennessee; and Rusk County Clerk Joyce Lewis-Kugle in Henderson, Texas — have all resigned rather than issue licenses to same-sex couples. Alabama law says county probate judges in the state “may” issue marriage licenses, so some counties there have ceased providing the service, USA Today reports.

The Ashland (Kentucky) Daily Independent contributed details to this story.