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ROWAN COUNTY, Kentucky, October 26, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A leading LGBT website is bashing Kentucky clerks for wanting to differentiate between same-sex and opposite-sex couples when issuing marriage licenses.

Earlier this week, the investigative website MuckRock.com published more than 400 e-mails from embattled Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. Those e-mails showed that 54 of the state's 93 clerks preferred to have separate marriage licenses for same-sex and opposite-sex couples.

“'Separate but equal,' the same old Jim Crow argument that was used to defend 'whites only' lunch counters and segregated schools, has resurfaced,” wrote Contributing Editor Jean Esselink for The New Civil Rights Movement (TNCRM). “The words may be different but the underlying concept is the same, except that this time it's being used by Kentucky county clerks who would like to make marriages by same-sex couples separate but equal to marriages by heterosexuals.”

However, results of a Kentucky County Clerk Association survey published by MuckRock show that clerks were struggling with how to properly address the issues of gender and spousal identification, not creating bigoted policies against same-sex couples.

For example, the group's president advised all clerks to follow the Supreme Court's ruling even as gender distinctions and other issues were decided upon.

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The association ended up conducting a survey examining six options of how to identify couples. Two clerks voted to keep traditional, accurate spousal identifiers of “bride” and “groom” on all certificates, while nine voted to change only one spouse's identifier.

Twenty-four clerks wanted to outsource the licensing to a website, with fees collected by clerks, while three wanted online licensing with no fees.

However, 54 backed the idea of having marriage licenses for opposite-sex couples with the traditional gender distinction, as well as a second license option for same-sex couples.

TNCRM founder and publisher David Badash did not respond to a request for comment as to whether he stood behind Esselink's analogy, which is common among same-sex “marriage” advocates who claim that objections to redefining marriage are based upon the same bigotry and discriminatory mindset as Jim Crow-era cultural and legal racism.