The Supreme Court may have made marriage equality the law of the land, but that doesn't mean people should go along with it, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Sunday, comparing those opponents to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
"I don't think a lot of pastors and Christian schools are going to have a choice" but to resist, Huckabee said on ABC's "This Week." "They either are going to follow God, their conscience and what they truly believe is what the scripture teaches them, or they will follow civil law."
"They will go the path of Dr. Martin Luther King, who in his brilliant essay the 'Letters from a Birmingham Jail' reminded us, based on what St. Augustine said, that an unjust law is no law at all," he continued. "And I do think that we're going to see a lot of pastors who will have to make this tough decision."
After the Supreme Court ruled Friday against bans on same-sex marriage, Huckabee urged his supporters to "resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat."
"This Week" host George Stephanopoulos asked Huckabee to explain what that would mean in practice and whether he was calling for civil disobedience.
Along with pastors, Huckabee said that he expects to see Christian business owners, university presidents and school administrators resist. He said county clerks should not be required to issue licenses for same-sex marriages if they do not want to.
Huckabee, like many Republicans, has said that the Supreme Court's ruling will usher in an age of discrimination against Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and may be forced to acknowledge or serve gay and lesbian weddings.
"I'm not sure that every governor and every attorney general should just say, 'Well, it's the law of the land because there's no enabling legislation,'" Huckabee said. "For the states who have a constitutional amendment that affirms marriage, as has been affirmed by the courts for 135 years since the ratification of the 14th Amendment, right up through the first time we've seen same-sex marriage enacted by any state, which was Massachusetts, in many states you have overwhelming majorities of the people who voted to say that they believe marriage is between a man and a woman."
Earlier on the show, Stephanopoulos talked to Jim Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the same-sex marriage cases that went before the Supreme Court. Obergefell was fighting to have his name listed on the death certificate of his husband, John Arthur, who died in 2013.
Huckabee said he was "deeply moved" by Obergefell's story, but still convinced the Supreme Court overstepped.
Obergefell had a message during his appearance for Huckabee and others who oppose same-sex marriage.
"I would simply like to say, think about your brother, your son, your sister, your daughter, a dear friend," he said. "If one of them were gay, they would still be the same person. You would still love them. And wouldn't you want them to enjoy the same rights that you do and that everyone else in this country does? We're simply asking to be treated equally and fairly and to enjoy the institution of marriage and to be able to commit to the ones we love."
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