Unlike Donald Trump, Ben Carson is coming down clearly on the side of finding ways to keep gay marriage dissenters like Kim Davis out of jail. Here he is explaining his position to Megyn Kelly:
MEGYN KELLY: What’s your take on Kim Davis and whether it was appropriate to jail her in the first place?
BEN CARSON: Well, jail seems a little extreme. I think what we need to look at is how do we stop this kind of thing from being a continuation? You know, when the Supreme Court made its decision, anyone should’ve known that this kind of thing was going to occur. And it’s going to continue to escalate. And Congress now has a responsibility to step up to the plate and enact legislation that will protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans. That’s the reason that we have divided government. When one branch does something that tilts the balance, the other branches need to pitch in and correct the situation. This is a serious problem.
KELLY: But the detractors say that that’s a slippery slope because next thing you’re going to have Catholics refuse to issue a marriage license to people who have been divorced, or Muslims who refuse to issue marriage licenses to people who want to marry Christians, and so on — where does it end?
CARSON: But this is a very basic right. You know, this is a Judeo-Christian nation in the sense that a lot of our values and principles are based on our Judeo-Christian faith. And when there are substantial numbers of people who actually believe in the traditional definition of marriage — I’m one of them. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think other people can do whatever they want to do. But I don’t actually believe that they have the right to force their way of life onto everybody else, nor would I try to force my way of life upon everybody else. And this is where some intellect has to come into place. And our legislators need to sit down and ask themselves, how do we make sure that the rights of all Americans are protected? It’s requires a little bit of effort.
Maggie Gallagher is a senior fellow at American Principles in Action.
