WASHINGTON (AP) – 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 outside the Carter County Detention Center.
“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. Not all the Republican White House hopefuls see it Huckabee’s way.
Asked about Davis’ imprisonment Friday morning, Republican Donald Trump noted that the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage.