In a teary affair Tuesday afternoon, Kim Davis, marriage-license withholder, was released from a Kentucky county jail.
She was held there, as Mike Huckabee and many of his supporters have decided, as a martyr for religious freedom and “doing what’s right.”
Huckabee was at Davis’ side as she was released and gave a moving speech that implied the judicial branch of the government was acting tyrannically when it struck down national bans on same-sex marriage.
He claimed God in the form of Kim Davis showed up to kick the Supreme Court’s dictatorial ass.
The only problem with that picture is Davis is still barred from withholding marriage licenses.
All she did was create a bunch of hubbub and let Huckabee use it as his own personal soapbox, not to mention the unnecessary amount of anguish she caused for same-sex couples in her county trying to get hitched.
Before Davis’ actual release, Huckabee gave an interview with ABC’s “This Week” where he said Americans must obey a court order only “if it’s right.”
However, “right” means so many things to so many different people, Mike.
Does that mean we can go back to giving women their desired healthcare no matter where they work?
Can we treat corporations like corporations instead of people?
He said in the same interview that Davis is just acting the same way President Lincoln did during the 1847 Dred Scott decision that refused black people the right to American citizenship.
The difference was Lincoln was standing up and fighting back so racial minorities could, you know, not be owned by other human beings, and Davis is refusing to cooperate with a decision that allows gays to love and legally marry whom they want to love and legally marry.
It’s hard to equate freedom with oppression, but Huckabee somehow manages to associate the two in this instance.
Huckabee also wrote on his Twitter account that this “judicial tyranny” has “torched” our Constitution, along with our fundamental rights.
He’s of course referring to the make-believe Constitution wherein the liberties prescribed only apply to cisgender, heterosexual Christians.
The First Amendment and the 14th Amendment protecting religious freedom and equal protection of the law are, in fact, for all Americans, Mike.
His cherry-picker’s attitude toward the Constitution seems only appropriate considering his confusion about the topic.
To Huckabee, “constitution” is a good word to throw at voters for brownie points.
Once we define the contents of the Constitution, things get a little hazy.
Article three detailing the judicial branch and necessity of a Supreme Court specifically seems to be rough on the guy.
His recent stint in the media has done one thing for Huckabee: It’s boosted his performance in his unspoken competition with Donald Trump to say the most truly confusing things before the primaries.
meickhof@indiana.edu
