Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has emerged as one of the leading defenders of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, said people need to wake up and realize that people of faith in the United States are “genuinely under attack.”
“It was what I call the criminalization of Christianity,” Mr. Huckabee said via phone on “Fox and Friends.” “She had strong conviction. This violated her basic conviction.”
Mrs. Davis has refused to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, citing religious objections.
“I think that people need to wake up and realize that the people of faith in this country are genuinely under attack. This is not about giving certain people their rights — it’s about denying others theirs,” he said.
The case in Kentucky has divided the 2016 GOP field and could come up at Wednesday’s GOP presidential debates in California. Mr. Huckabee is one of 11 candidates to qualify for the main, prime-time debate stage.
“And that’s why you see out in Oregon a couple fined $135,000 because they wouldn’t [make] a cake for a same-sex couple. It’s why you see people hauled up before civil rights commissions because they wouldn’t cater or do the photography for an event,” he said.
“The question is, who’s next? Is it your pastor? Is it your Christian school administrator?” Mr. Huckabee said. “If you don’t bow down to this really amazingly new and hastily put together definition of marriage, then does that make you a bigot? Does that make you somebody who is going to be pushed by the court and sent to jail? We’ve already seen the first person go to jail over it.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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