Mike Huckabee, in a desperate attempt to become news (in the foreboding shadow of Trump), announced he will be in Kentucky, this Tuesday, to help protest the incarceration of Kim Davis. The law-breaking clerk is sanctimonious in her assertion that issuing same-sex licenses goes against her deeply held religious beliefs. Her convictions don't include her violations of Biblical law as it pertains to heterosexual marriage, so she's cherry picking as cafeteria Christians are want to do.
On This Week, George Stephanopoulos tried to drag it out of Huck that we are a nation of laws, and this woman, religion or not, is breaking a law by not carrying out her job responsiblities. He repeats an argument he used several times last week.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor, thank you for joining us this morning. I know you're going to be going to Kentucky on Tuesday as a part of demonstration and support of Kim Davis.
But there are some dissenting voices in the conservative movement. I wanted you to respond to something from Rod Drayer (ph) in "The American Conservative."
He says that, "The Supreme Court makes a ruling we don't like, we are obliged to obey the law or be willing to suffer the consequences of disobedience. What we cannot do and what the government cannot permit is open defiance of settled law.
He believes this is going to backfire on the religious liberty movement. What's your response?
HUCKABEE: Well, he would have hated Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln ignored the 1857 Dred Scott decision that said black people weren't fully human. It was a wrong decision. And to say that we have to surrender to judicial supremacy is to do what Jefferson warned against, which is, in essence, surrender to judicial tyranny.
The comparison of marriage equality with Dred Scott, SCOTUS' worst decision, a close second to the 2010, Citizens United decision, shows that Huckabee and his fundamentalist peanut gallery believe that marrying two people of the same sex is akin to slavery. This isn't the first time we've heard the Huckster go down this ugly road, he did so four years ago but in 2011, but quickly recanted his statement. Now he's doubling down on it, and he's very proud of himself.
George asks the former Arkansas Governor if he would issue a statement much like JFK did when questioned about his religion interfering with the U.S.Constitution's Separation Clause.
HUCKABEE: When the courts have a ruling, then it is incumbent on Congress to codify that into law and specifically delineate what that means. That hasn’t happened, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But how is this different then from Loving v. Virginia back in 1967? Of course that was a Supreme Court ruling that struck down bans on interracial marriage. If a clerk at that time had said my religious beliefs forbid me from issuing this license, would you support that?
HUCKABEE: Well, it is incredibly different situation because --
STEPHANOPOULOS: How so?
HUCKABEE: -- what the Supreme Court did in Loving -- no, it’s not the same, George, not even close. Because in Loving you still had a marriage which was a man and a woman, and it was equal protection. But it didn’t redefine marriage. What’s -- the Supreme Court did in June.
STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the most memorable statements ever made by a president on separation of church and state was a quote from John F. Kennedy to the Baptist ministers back in his campaign in 1960. Let me play a bit of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When if the time should ever come and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible, when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you make that same statement in your candidacy for president?
HUCKABEE: I can't see any circumstance in which I would be required to violate my conscience and -- and the law. And if so, I think maybe there is a point at which you say either I'll resign or put me in jail.
Huckabee claims, erroneously, because the SCOTUS ruled on a case that would have nullified the 14th Amendment, it's still not settled law because it's not a specific LAW. So he drives in the roundabout more times than Chevy Chase in European Vacation, trying to weasel his way out of answering the question of what would happen during a Huckabee Administration?
HUCKABEE: We are bypassing the process when we have one branch of government acting as it has authority over the other two. And what I'm coming back to -- and I -- I think people are missing this -- either we live under the rule of law, which is a three branch, checks and balances system of government, or we end up with what I think was so powerful when Lincoln said this -- and I want to read this.
He said, "If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court the instant they are made, then in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government into the hands of this imminent tribunal."
Stephanopoulos quickly ended the interview, obviously Huckabee went way beyond the time he was allotted. With each subsequent interview on this matter, the GOP candidate shows us how divorced from reality he is.
