Mike Huckabee Claims Kim Davis Fighting 'Judicial Tyranny'

During an appearance Sunday on ABC's This Week, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee claimed that jailed Kentucky clerk Kim Davis was fighting “judicial tyranny.”

Huckabee is planning to attend a rally Tuesday for Davis, the elected clerk of Rowan County who was taken into custody on Thursday after a federal judge found her in contempt for ignoring his ruling ordering her to issue marriage licenses to all qualified couples. Davis, an Apostolic Christian, has said that her faith will not allow her to issue such licenses.

The day after Davis was jailed, deputy clerks at her office began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Huckabee, an outspoken opponent of LGBT rights, told host George Stephanopoulos that Davis was being persecuted.

“What we've seen here is the overreach of the judicial,” he said. “This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what [President Thomas] Jefferson warned us about. That's judicial tyranny.”

When asked if he would support a clerk unwilling to issue marriage licenses in 1967 after the Supreme Court invalidated interracial marriage bans in Loving v. Virginia, Huckabee responded that the situations were different.

“If a clerk at that time had said, 'My religious beliefs forbid me from issuing this license,' would you support that?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“It's not the same George, not even close, because in Loving you still had a marriage which was a man and a woman and it was equal protection but it didn't redefine marriage,” he answered.

“But you didn't have laws implementing the ruling then, either. So, would it have been okay to defy the Supreme Court in that case?”

“Again, it's a very different equation altogether, because this is a redefinition. Marriage is not defined in the federal Constitution at all, it's a matter for the states. And applying the 14^th Amendment to the equality of men and women in their relationship in marriage is totally different than redefining marriage,” Huckabee answered.

Stephanopoulos tried again, saying “in both cases you have the Supreme Court saying that state laws don't further the Constitution, don't further the 14^th Amendment.”

“No, it's not [the same],” Huckabee insisted.

Later in the interview, Huckabee said that he would consider resigning or going to jail as president if he was forced to choose between following the law and his religious beliefs.