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Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee argued that courts do more to protect religious liberties of Muslims than of Christians. (Screengrab)
Before the second Republican presidential debate, candidate Mike Huckabee flew to the side of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, who went to jail rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses. Davis said it violated her religious beliefs to put her name to the forms that would allow such marriages.
During the debate, Huckabee said Davis represented an example of judicial tyranny.
"We made accommodation to the Fort Hood shooter to let him grow a beard," Huckabee said. "We made accommodations to the detainees at Gitmo — I’ve been to Gitmo, and I’ve seen the accommodations that we made to the Muslim detainees who killed Americans.
"You’re telling me that you cannot make an accommodation for an elected Democrat county clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky? What else is it other than the criminalization of her faith and the exaltation of the faith of everyone else who might be a Fort Hood shooter or a detainee at Gitmo?"
We wondered if indeed the Fort Hood shooter got to keep his beard out of concern for his religious rights.
Not quite.
An appeals court did overrule the initial trial judge who ordered that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan be forcibly shaved, that ruling did not affirm that Hasan had the right based on his religion. Instead, it said that it wasn’t the judge’s job to enforce the military dress code, which requires personnel to be clean shaven.
When Hasan was convicted and sent to Fort Leavenworth, he was forcibly shaved.
So Hasan did keep his beard for a while, but ultimately, no accommodation was made for religious reasons. PolitiFact rated this claim Mostly False.
