US | Candidate Huckabee to join rally for clerk opposed to gay marriage

GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee

Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will join protesters at rally outside the jail where a Kentucky clerk is locked in a cell over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
Huckabee plans a private meeting with Kim Davis, who was jailed by a federal judge Thursday after defying several court orders. Her lawyers spent Labor Day weekend filing appeals in an effort to force her release, but she remains there on a contempt charge.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister who often reaches out to religious conservatives, says Davis is simply exercising her religious freedom by denying the marriage licenses.
Davis’ jailing offers the many Republican presidential candidates an opportunity to appeal to the Republican’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, however.
Huckabee’s visit comes a day after Davis filed yet another appeal in the hopes of being released. Her attorneys asked for an order to have Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear accommodate Davis’ “religious conviction,” and not force her to grant licenses to gay couples.
The same request was denied last month by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, who jailed Davis.
On Monday, about 30 protesters lined the sidewalk outside Bunning’s home in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, carrying signs that read “Free Kim Davis.” Fort Thomas Police Lt. Casey Kilgore said the group gathered around 2 p.m., and the protest stretched on for several hours.
Davis, an apostolic Christian, says gay marriage is a sin. She also says it would be a sin for her to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple because the licenses are issued under her authority.
Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses in June the day after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her. Bunning ordered Davis to issue the licenses, and the Supreme Court upheld his ruling.
But Davis still refused to do it. Bunning ruled Thursday that Davis was in contempt of court and sent her to jail. Her deputy clerks — except for her son, Nathan Davis — then issued marriage licenses to gay couples on Friday. Dylan Lovan, Louisville, Kentucky, AP