Republican presidential politicians may have grabbed the headlines at Friday’s Values Voter Summit, but Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and pro-life video-maker David Daleiden got the heroes’ welcomes.
“I am only one, but we are many,” said Ms. Davis, who has gone to jail for five days for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples with her name on the official forms. The devout Christian, who tearfully thanked Jesus Christ in her brief statement at the summit, has said she is seeking to obey “God’s authority,” and is seeking religious accommodation from the state.
Ms. Davis, joined by her husband, Joe, received the Cost of Discipleship Award from FRC Action, the legislative arm of Family Research Council (FRC).
“When one person stands, it has an impact,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel and an attorney for Ms. Davis, who showed a photo of 100,000 people in Lima, Peru, who gathered to pray for her safety and release from jail.
Mr. Daleiden, who also got a standing ovation, told the crowd he founded the Center for Medical Progress to do citizen journalism on bioethical issues. It has has now released 10 undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials and others discussing “how to use illegal partial-birth abortion procedures to harvest the hearts, lungs, livers and brains of live babies for profit,” he said.
To anyone who would say that videos don’t show Planned Parenthood engaged in federal felonies, “I would just say that you’re not listening hard enough,” said Mr. Daleiden.
Separately, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is expected to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Sept. 29. She and her top officials have repeatedly said they have followed federal laws regarding fetal tissue donation, and have been subjected to a smear campaign by Mr. Daleiden’s group.
The 2,700 social conservatives who gathered for the 10th annual Values Voter Summit, which ends Sept. 27, heard dozens of speeches about the importance of religious freedom, constitutional protections, national defense, and family and pro-life values.
“America is never going to be a great country … We are never going to be blessed by God if we’re a country that kills our children in the womb,” said Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
The former Pennsylvania senator recalled telling a journalist that, due to the undercover videos made by the Center for Medical Progress, “not only should we defund Planned Parenthood, we should be prosecuting Planned Parenthood.”
The journalist asked, “What laws have they [Planned Parenthood] broken?”
“And I said, well, the procedures that we saw described in these videos I know very well, because they were partial-birth abortions,” Mr. Santorum said he told the journalist. “I know that’s against the law,” he added, “because I wrote the law.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, also jumped into the abortion issue, promising that one of his first acts as president would be to have the Department of Justice “open an investigation into Planned Parenthood and these horrible videos.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said that when the first undercover video came out, his state acted to investigate Planned Parenthood has since cancelled its Medicaid contract with the company.
The action is now being fought in court, with support from the Obama administration, he said.