A lawyer representing Kim Davis on Sunday defended the Kentucky clerk’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples by comparing her situation to President Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to the Dred Scott ruling.
During a segment on C-SPAN, Mat Staver, a lawyer for the conservative Liberty Counsel, responded to a caller’s condemnation of Davis’ refusal to fulfill her duties as a government worker.
“If we told Abraham Lincoln, ‘Abraham Lincoln, you should just go along with the Dred Scott decision. After all, it is what the racist Chief Justice Taney wrote, and it’s the law of the land,'” Staver said on C-SPAN, according to a clip pubilshed by Raw Story. “And yet, Lincoln advocated something different than that and unfortunately because of that Dred Scott decision we had to fight a Civil War. It was a terrible time of our history.”
During her repeated attempts to halt gay marriage licenses in Rowan County, conservatives have defended Davis and compared her to civil rights activists.
Presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) compared her to Martin Luther King Jr. last week.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) has also compared the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage to the Dred Scott decision while questioning the validity of the court’s ruling.
Watch Staver’s response on C-SPAN via Raw Story:
