GOP candidate Huckabee to meet with jailed clerk
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is scheduled to visit a Kentucky jail next week to meet with a county clerk imprisoned because she ignored repeated court orders to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Huckabee, a Baptist pastor and Republican presidential candidate, plans to host a rally in County Clerk Kim Davis’ honor after the private meeting.
“Having Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubt of the criminalization of Christianity in our country,” Huckabee said in a statement issued Friday. “What a world, where Hillary Clinton isn’t in jail but Kim Davis is.”
Davis’ jailing offers the many Republican presidential candidates an opportunity to appeal to the GOP’s evangelical Christian wing, which opposes same-sex marriage and casts Davis’ imprisonment as an issue of religious freedom. But not all the Republican White House hopefuls see it Huckabee’s way.
Asked about Davis’ imprisonment Friday morning, GOP front-runner Donald Trump noted that the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage.
“You have to go with it,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “The decision has been made, and that’s the law of the land.”
The former reality television star suggested that Davis allow a deputy clerk to issue the marriage licenses. During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning offered to release Davis if she promised not to interfere with her employees issuing licenses, but she refused, citing her Christian beliefs.
“I hate to see her being put in jail,” Trump said, but added, “We’re a nation of laws.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another candidate, lashed out at Trump on Twitter. “You can’t make America great again by throwing Christians in jail,” Jindal tweeted.