Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Thursday that he "unequivocally" supported Kim Davis, the defiant Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
"I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally," the Texas senator said in a
statement on his campaign website. "I stand with every American that the Obama administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion."
Davis, the Rowan County clerk,
was jailed by U.S. District Judge David Bunning until she complied with his order to issue the licenses.
The clerk stopped issuing licenses to all couples in June after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. Despite rulings against her, she's turned away couples again and again, citing her Christian beliefs and "God's authority."
GOP candidates Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also support Davis.
"Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny," said Cruz, who has made religious liberty a hallmark of his White House run. "Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith.
"This is wrong," he added. "This is not America."
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