Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
It is silent on any other body or branch being granted power of enforcement.
Granting, for the sake of argument, that the other articles really do somehow mean states need to recognize same sex marriages, it still seems to this layman that the only proper way to force the clerk to issue licensees against her conscious would be if the federal legislature passed legislation compelling her.
Interesting point.
There’s so much room for interpretation in the law that I think a lot can be accomplished through sheer willfulness. All law is ultimately political and subject to political pressure. The only reason the 14th amendment is being interpreted as it is currently is that the left has outhustled us politically. There’s nothing in the law itself that requires this new interpretion.