CNN host Alisyn Camerota pressed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum Monday on his support for Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“Do we have a country if everyone acts on their own individual personal religious beliefs and decides not to follow certain laws?” Camerota asked the former senator.
Davis, after she was released from jail last week, asked a district appeals court on Friday to halt marriages in her county. Camerota asked Santorum what he thought Davis should do.
Santorum said that he would advise Davis to “follow her conscience.”
“Kim Davis has every right to say that this should be a religious accommodation and I believe the state of Kentucky as well as the federal government should be passing things like the First Amendment Defense Act which does provide accommodations for people both inside and outside government that have religious convictions that differ from the court ruling,” Santorum said.
Camerota noted that “it is discrimination not to provide a license” to same-sex couples because the Supreme Court ruling was the “law of the land.”
“I’m sure there are lots of laws that you yourself don’t agree with, but you follow the law. That’s what we do as Americans,” Camerota told Santorum.
“Number one, because the Supreme Court says something, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the law of the land,” Santorum said to Camerota. “My belief is when the Supreme Court acts beyond their constitutional authority then we have every obligation to fight that.”
“When the court exceeds its authority, the Congress and the president should push back,” Santorum continued.
“And there’s a process for that,” Camerota interjected. “Yes, the Congress can go through processing its own legislation. There’s a process. But at the moment — today — the Supreme Court has decreed the law of the land. And she is defying it. I mean, do we have a country if everyone acts on their own individual personal religious beliefs and decides not to follow certain laws?”
Santorum pushed back.
“Again, the Supreme Court made a decision about same-sex marriage, which again, I believe was beyond their authority to do so,” Santorum said. “It did not provide anything that Kim Davis had to issue a marriage license. It said very clearly that there had to be accommodations provided for people of faith.”
Watch a clip of the interview from Raw Story:
