Kim Davis Released From Jail As Ted Cruz Shows Support To Clerk Who Denied LGBT Marriage License

Kim Davis was released from jail on Tuesday, possibly spoiling a campaign stop for Republican hopefuls Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee. The Kentucky county clerk had been behind bars for six days after being found in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses citing a religious objection to gay marriage. Davis’ attorney broke the news live on Yahoo News , hours ahead of rally planned by her supporters. Huckabee and others have compared Davis to civil rights activists.

But representatives of Kim Davis has not billed herself as an activist, and a spokesman for her reiterated on Tuesday that she is primarily seeking accommodation for her religious beliefs. As part of her release, she is barred from interfering with her deputy clerks, who are now issuing marriage licenses to both same sex and opposite-sex.

“They are issuing [marriage licenses] under the authority of Judge Bunning,” Davis attorney Roger Gannam told Yahoo News, arguing that a permanent “accommodation can be accomplished in a reasonable way.”

The release order does not resolve Davis’ legal troubles, but allow her to remain free while she appeals a court decision that required her to issue marriage licenses in accordance with the law. Cruz had planned to meet privately Davis today, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Davis’ lawyer did not say if the meeting would be moved to her home or canceled. On Twitter, he praised the decision to release Davis.

Davis did meet with rival Republican presidential candidate and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee , who had organized a “#Imwithkim Liberty Rally” before Davis was released. Huckabee tweeted a photo of himself with Davis outside of jail on Tuesday.

Both Huckabee and Cruz cite “religious liberty” in their ongoing support of Davis.

“Sen. Cruz will continue doing everything in his power to defend Kim Davis and ensure that no other Americans are further targeted for their religious beliefs” campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the WSJ shortly before Davis was released.

Though Davis is fighting for some form of personal freedom, the immediate consequence is hinder equality for others. That use of civil disobedience -- to stop equality and slow down integration of minority groups isn’t new, according to U.S. News contributor Nicole Hemmer .

“[Despite law-and-order rhetoric], conservatives [have] looked to the civil rights movement as a model for successful grassroots protest, explicitly modeling their activism – including a newfound preference for civil disobedience – after the civil rights leaders of the 1950s and 1960s. White parents protesting busing in Boston in the 1970s borrowed freely from black activists, holding bus boycotts, sit-ins and marches,” Hemmer wrote.

Critics say that Davis is breaking the law and violating her oath of office. Unlike a civil rights organizers and activists such as César Chavez, Davis has sworn to “faithfully execute” the laws as part of her elected office.

"What I would do with this woman is to move her to another job where this is not an objection for her, because you have to follow the law, and the law is these licenses have to be issued," said Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie on Fox and Friends . "If she has a religious objection we should move her to another job inside the government."

Ted Cruz said ahead of his meeting with Davis that her imprisonment for contempt amounted “criminalization of Christianity,” and criticized officials who called for her to resign her post or move to another job.

Kim Davis “Persecuted,” Not “Lawless,” Cruz Argues

Cruz’s support of Kim Davis is also part of his vehement opposition to gay marriage. He has the Christian Evangelical base of the GOP by filing a constitutional amendment to unto the Supreme court’s decision. Cruz often cites Justice Antonin Scalia, who dissented against the majority in the marriage equality decision calling it “an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law.”

Yet even Justice Scalia has criticized officials who fail to execute their government oath’s based on religious conviction, The CS Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson reports .

“[Officials have] after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own,” Scalia wrote in in a law article in 2002, in reference to a man who objected to the death penalty. “Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penalty -- and if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do.”

Cruz’s accusations of lawlessness have extended from the Supreme Court to the White House, to the Mayor of San Francisco, to the very U.S. district judge that found David in contempt. For Cruz and other supporters, Davis’ technical violation of the law doesn’t put her at fault, but at the center of what they say is religious persecution.

“Kim Davis should not be in jail. We are a country founded on Judeo-Christian values, founded by those fleeing religious oppression and seeking a land where we could worship God and live according to our faith, without being imprisoned for doing so,” Cruz said in a statement last week.