Rand on Kim Davis: ‘Absurd To Put Someone in Jail for Exercising Their Religious Liberty’
RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
ANCHOR: "We have some breaking news here at CNN. The Kentucky clerk, the county clerk in Kentucky, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, has now been ordered by a federal judge to be taken into custody. This happened just moments ago. This was a federal judge who, again, issued that order for clerk Kim Davis, who has reportedly refused despite court intervention to go ahead and award those marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Joining me now from capitol Hill, we have Kentucky senator, this is very appropriate, and Republican presidential candidate, Rand Paul. Senator, you just heard that news. What's your reaction to this? I know you've come out in support of Kim Davis, but with this news, what's your take?"
PAUL: "I think it's absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty. If you want to convince people that same-sex marriage is something that's acceptable, I would say try to persuade people. If we're going to use the federal government and we're going to get involved in every state locality, you know what's going to happen, it's going to harden people's resolve on this issue. There will be no open-mindedness on this. And I think it's a real mistake to be doing this. I think what's going to happen as a result of this is states and localities are just going to opt out of the marriage business completely. Her heartfelt religious conviction is that this isn't the kind of marriage she approves of. My understanding is she will file a contract, if two adults have a contract, she'll file it. She just doesn't want to have a signature, her signature, on it showing her approval. I see no reason why there couldn't be a compromise where we couldn't have a notary of the republic, a notary of the public, certify the contract and she files it. My understanding is she will do that, that she doesn't want to give her signature to a type of marriage that she objects to and this is really the problem when from the federal level we decide to get involved with a situation that is always throughout the history of our country been a local issue."
