Huckabee: Jailing of Kentucky clerk a ‘frightening moment’

by TheHill.com - 09/09/15 10:06 AM ET

The fight over a Kentucky clerk’s refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses isn’t finished, GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee predicted Wednesday.

“This is far from over. And the fact that she was ever put in jail for what she did is a frightening moment, I believe, in this country,” Huckabee said on “Fox & Friends.”

{mosads}”If Kim Davis can go to jail for this, who’s next? Your pastor?” Huckabee said later.

The former Arkansas governor headlined a rally for Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in Kentucky on Tuesday, which took place shortly after a judge ordered her release from jail.

Huckabee said he spoke to Davis before her hearing last Thursday in which she was found in contempt of court for refusing to issue the licenses and put in federal custody.

The candidate said he had people on the ground within eight hours of that hearing to start organizing the event in support of Davis, who ended up spending about five days in jail.

“Why can’t she be the county clerk? Why can’t the licenses be issued under the name of the state?” Huckabee asked during another Wednesday appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Huckabee questioned whether the federal judge in the case overreached “by putting this woman in jail rather than trying to figure out a way to give her some accommodation so that she didn’t have to affix her name to a marriage license to which she objected because of her Christian convictions.”

During an interview on Tuesday night with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Huckabee recalled visiting terrorist cells in Guantánamo Bay, which he said included certain accommodations for those praying toward Mecca.

“You asked what’s coming, I’ll tell you what’s coming,” Huckabee said. “Next it’s going to be your pastor, the head of your Christian school. Who else is going to go to jail before this is over? This is long from over.”