U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (TX) and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will travel to Kentucky today to meet with jailed Rowan County clerk Kim Davis. As you'll recall, Davis was jailed by federal judge David Bunning for failing to offer marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the order from the U.S. Supreme Court in June.
As The New York Times reports, the two Republican presidential hopefuls will be holding separate events protesting Davis' imprisonment rather than holding a joint rally:
Mr. Cruz […] will fly down early and then take questions from the press around 1 p.m. Mr. Huckabee's event will start around 2:30, and feature Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Mathew D. Staver of Liberty Counsel.
Both candidates have been among the most vociferous in supporting Ms. Davis. Mr. Cruz released a statement after her arrest that called on “every believer, every constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis.”
“It is important to Sen. Cruz for Kim Davis to know that he supports her and will do everything in his power to ensure her situation is resolved and that no other Americans who strive to live out their faith fall victim to religious persecution by the government,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said in a statement.
Every Believer, every Constitutionalist, every lover of liberty should stand w/ Kim Davis: https://t.co/zyBRG91OXG https://t.co/0DGG9gZyQE
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 6, 2015
Exercising #ReligiousLiberty should never be a crime in America –> http://t.co/fYxFEng5gH #ImWithKim #KimDavis pic.twitter.com/TzEB2TYjUW
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) September 3, 2015
In an email sent Monday, Huckabee called on his supporters to follow his lead and ‘stand with Kim.' Huckabee wrote,
There comes a time when you must take a stand for your faith and this is one of those times. Let's make sure Kim knows she is not alone. We must always defend our religious liberty and never surrender to judicial tyranny.
Huckabee also penned an op-ed for Fox News in which he argued that Davis' “right to religious liberty” has been violated. He writes,
Today, I ask on behalf of Kim: “Under what law is she authorized to issue homosexual couples a marriage license?” Can you site the specific right in the Constitution? Is there a statute, passed by Congress that actually says that the five unelected lawyers in the majority of the court's opinion were right to throw out the very definition of marriage and make up one on their own?
Huckabee goes on to call Kim Davis' “stand for religious liberty” a “pivotal moment in our nation's history”:
“Will we continue to pretend as though the Supreme Court is the “Supreme Branch” with the authority and ability to make laws? It most certainly is not. The Supreme Court is one of three co-equal branches of government under our Constitution. It is no more the “Supreme Branch” than it is the “Supreme Being” with the authority to redefine the laws of nature or of nature's God!
He concludes:
“I refuse to sit silently as our Constitution is torched and the courts violate our fundamental rights. We did not fight a revolution against the tyranny of one unelected monarch so we could surrender our freedoms and abandon our Constitution to the tyranny of five unaccountable, unelected lawyers.
This shredding of the most fundamental civil rights of our citizens cannot stand. I will fight for, and protect, the religious liberty of every American. This will go down as a seminal moment in American history if we do not free Kim Davis now and make sure this never happens again.”
