Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign organized a rally this afternoon in front of the jail where anti-gay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis was being held in the custody of U.S. Marshals after a federal judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.
Huckabee brought along with him not only Davis’ attorney, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, but also Religious Right leaders including Brian Brown, Rick Scarborough, Tony Perkins and the Benham brothers. GOP gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin also addressed the rally and Huckabee’s 2016 rival Ted Cruz met with Davis upon her release.
As fate would have it, Davis was released from custody just hours before Huckabee’s rally, so she came out to speak alongside Huckabee, Staver and her husband, taking the stage to Survivor's “Eye of the Tiger.”
Davis, the Religious Right’s favorite new “persecution” victim, received a hero’s welcome as Huckabee and Staver declared her victorious over the forces of darkness/the rule of law.
After briefly losing her composure, a teary-eyed Davis thanked God and the crowd, beseeching attendees to keep up the fight. Huckabee then closed things out by claiming that pastors and school administrators may soon end up in prison for opposing gay marriage, even though that is not the reason that Davis was put in the custody of U.S. Marshals.
Others at the rally warned of an impending anti-Christian holocaust — a line frequently used by Staver — while one participant raised up a Confederate flag.
Spotted at Mike Huckabee's Kim Davis rally pic.twitter.com/RBDO7JV229
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 8, 2015
One attendee seemed to suggest that HIV/AIDS was divine punishment for homosexuality, a claim that speaker Rick Scarborough has made in the past.
I don't get it pic.twitter.com/6MPkHnSY02
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) September 8, 2015
